Flooding relief comes to Christiansburg neighborhood

Flooding is always on the minds of people in one Christiansburg neighborhood. Every time there was a heavy rain, their front yards turn into lakes and streets into rivers.

Help is on the way in the form of a new drainage system.

Explosives blasted through rock Thursday morning, breaking up the ground to make room for improvements.

"It's definitely a relief," said Andrew McCoy.

For him, it's been a long time coming.

"When we'd have rains for a couple days, I'd stay out here on the porch the biggest part of the night watching it wasn't getting under my house," McCoy said.

He's lived in the neighborhood for 30 years. He's seen neighbors come and go and sections of his yard wash away.

"We got flooded out about 10 years ago. Then three weeks later we got flooded again. It cost me about $6,000 each time to straighten up the damage it done," McCoy said.

The town is creating a solution that is projected to dry up the flooding problem by installing large drain pipes underground. The project also includes new sanitary sewer pipes and storm drains. It's meant to force most of the runoff into a new direction down to a nearby creek.

The construction is taking up several blocks through the neighborhood and is happening right in front of David Klimek's home.

"It's worrisome. It's definitely worrisome," Klimek said.

He's seen at least three floods in the two years he's lived here. Almost every time he's lost power.

"We're just able to watch it. It's like a movie. Real wild," Klimek said.

People here are very happy to see these crews working to fix this issue.

A few streets will remain closed until the project is finished this summer.

It is expected to cost about one million dollars. Christiansburg is paying for half of that by using funds from its new storm water utility fee.