Effingham Co. family concerned by flooded yard after night of heavy rainfall

EFFINGHAM COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - Viewer video from the Hunters Chase neighborhood, just outside of Guyton, shows a flooded yard.

The woman behind the cell phone video said she’s worried if another rainfall like Thursday night’s happens again, that the water could reach her home.

Traces of the rainstorm were still evident Friday morning along the streets and in the yards of homes in Hunters Chase. The woman who sent us pictures and the video of the rising water says she didn’t realize just how bad it had gotten until she got a call from her husband as he was returning home from the store late last night.

“He called me and said, ‘I need you to come outside and help me get in the driveway’ because he couldn’t see our driveway to get in the driveway. And then I’m like holy moly, I opened the front door and there was standing water like six feet from my front door,” Alyssa Nickel said.

The county manager, Tim Callanan, said the issues stem from how the neighborhood was designed.

Callanan said the good news is the county is moving forward with finding a fix for this area and others like it. He says money was set aside in the County’s TSPLOST to have engineers come in and design solutions that will allow the rainwater drain away more quickly.

But it’s not a quick fix, so in the meantime, residents are having to take matters into their own hands to protect their property.

Nickel said her family is getting sandbags to at least try to protect their home.

The county manager says there are two other neighborhoods in Effingham that have similar issues, and one of those, Westwood Heights, they’ve awarded the design contract to resolve their drainage problems.

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