Persistent flooding in Belville community a concern for residents and the mayor

BELVILLE, NC (WWAY) — Days after Debby impacted Southeastern North Carolina, some areas of the Cape Fear are still dealing with flooding, including Belville.

The largest area still flooded in Belville is at East Wood Lane and Two Pine Road in the Olde Towne Community… an area that has been prone to flooding for decades.

Nancy Moore has lived in this community since 2002.

For years, she said there have been ongoing flooding problems, but nothing has been done due to the confusing jurisdictions between Belville, Leland, and Brunswick County.

Moore said flooding from Debby was about as bad as what she experienced during Hurricane Florence in 2018.

She said it’s frustrating that nothing has been done to maintain effective drainage and ditch maintenance to prevent flooding.

“The problem is how do we clear that, how do we fix that problem,” Moore said. “Because I seem to remember as a little child, New Center Drive had the same problem. For decades, New Center Drive would hold water and it got worse as they expanded that road. At some point, Wilmington had enough and fixed that problem. That’s what we’re asking here. Fix the problem because its going to keep reoccurring.”

Belville town mayor Mike Allen said the town can only do so much, as not every ditch is under its control.

Allen explained that the maintenance of some ditches is up to the residents, not the town.

“They can go in and hopefully we gonna work with them because even if the town comes in and we clean them out, they have to be maintained,” Allen said. “Well, that’s not a town responsibility. That would be up to the citizens.”

Allen told WWAY that he hopes to have a town hall meeting soon to discuss the maintenance of ditches that the town, county, or state is not responsible for.

Allen also said that a crew with the NCDOT went out to that area on Monday to check on ditch and drainage conditions and is expected to start working on the problem as early as Tuesday.