Flooding damages South End businesses again

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE) – Business owners in South End are calling on the City of Charlotte to help fix a continued flooding problem. One business owner says it has been a battle against the city for more than two decades.

The big question business owners have for city stormwater leaders is how many more floods have to damage their business before someone steps in?

You may remember FOX 46 Charlotte covered a similar flood along the same area of Distribution Street on August 5. The latest flood in that area happened this past Friday, again damaging several small businesses.

“Remember I am in the furniture business, so water is not furniture’s best friend,” said the owner of Grier Interiors, Eddie Grier. 

The carpet inside Grier Interiors is gone, but that’s just the beginning of the expenses following dozens of floods at the business over the past two decades.

“We’ve had more than 3 cars totaled because of the floods,” said Grier.

Greir and his other business neighbors have e-mailed city stormwater services for years. Back in 2017 a project manager from the city said the problem was quote “on our radar”. Two years later, two floods have happened in three weeks.

“It has been really disheartening, especially because the older I get the worse it gets. I just want the city to help and do its job. I am not asking for any favors,” said Grier. 

City of Charlotte Stormwater Services tells FOX 46 Charlotte there is a plan to fix flooding sometime in fiscal year 2020, which runs from October 1 of this year through September 30, 2020.

Business owners like Eddie Grier say they’ve heard that before. He just hopes the problem is fixed before he retires and sells his property.

“But I cannot do it without the water stopping. No one would be interested and I can’t blame them when you have the situation we have to deal with,” said Grier.

FOX 46 asked for a sit down interview with someone from stormwater services so we could show them the video of the flooding and how it’s impacting business owners, but they denied that request