‘I can’t get my mail’: Rock Hill woman says house is blocked by stormwater work

Kimberly Persaud has tried to be patient with the work being done outside her Woodhaven Road home. But she could only put up with a piece of equipment sitting in front of her house for so long.

A small piece of machinery used to compact gravel over the section of Woodhaven that had been pulled up to lay a storm pipe was left near her front mailbox by one of the crew doing the work. Nearly a week later, it was still there.

“It’s probably been there since Wednesday or Thursday,” Persaud said, “and we can’t get mail because it’s blocking the mailbox.”

She’s had trouble with flooding during heavy rains thanks to a culvert that runs beside her home, so she was glad the city began work earlier this year to improve stormwater runoff. But she says she’s had consistent trouble with equipment and debris, from tractors to work trucks to old, broken pieces of concrete pipes, left near her house.

Crews dug up a portion of her side yard this summer to put in the new culvert, leaving a large pile of dirt in her front yard. Road barriers at either end of the block closed her residential street to all but local traffic, while a rotation of cranes and compactors have done their work just feet from her front door.

Woodhaven, along with neighboring streets Pinevalley Road and Midbrook Drive, is one of four routinely flooded areas Rock Hill targeted for improvement earlier this year, using a $4 million state loan to pay for the work.

Work began on all four areas shortly after the city council accepted the loan in March, and today Woodhaven and Midbrook are the last ones still with significant work to do, said city stormwater engineer David Dickson. In addition to the work on Persaud’s block of Woodhaven, a long section of Midbrook also will need to be re-patched, he said. Fencing and trees that originally lined the culvert also must be restored.

“Dec. 30 has always been the drop-dead date for our contractor,” Dickson said.

The post office has told her they can’t deliver mail when her mailbox is obstructed, and she says her family sometimes can’t get their cars in and out of the driveway because of all this construction.

“They’ll just stop the trucks and leave them sitting,” Persaud said. “If they’re off doing something else, we have to say, ‘hey, move the truck please, we’ve got to leave.’”

But Persaud hasn’t always been able to find the right people to help. General contractor Garawco Inc. of Rock Hill has subcontracted the task of building the culvert’s “wing wall” to KCI Concrete Forming-Suring of Indian Trail, N.C. One company may not have the keys to move the other’s equipment.

“Just move your stuff away from the mailbox. Move it closer to where you’re working,” she said. “You’ve got everything clogged up, and I can’t get no mail, and it gets aggravating.”

Dickson said he was made aware of Persaud’s complaint and has tried to get her in touch with the general contractor working on the issue.

Eventually, Persaud did get the machinery blocking her mail moved. When the crew working on the scene couldn’t find a key, they brought a lift around to pick it up by the straps and carry it away.

She hopes the work on the stormwater culvert can be completed just as quickly.

“You can’t leave it open forever,” she said.

This story was originally published November 29, 2015 at 5:44 PM with the headline "‘I can’t get my mail’: Rock Hill woman says house is blocked by stormwater work."