Meeting will eye businesses' flood concerns
By Kenneth Fine
Published in News on September 25, 2006 1:49 PM
Business owners in the Barnyard Shopping Center will get a chance to talk to the committee charged with planning a new Stoney Creek Park tonight.
The meeting comes after heavy rains caused flooding along Ash Street and in the shopping center when the remains of Tropical Storm Ernesto hit the area.
Business owners asked city officials to meet with them to discuss the plans for Stoney Creek Park, which includes a lake, as well as their flood concerns in the wake of the water that damaged many businesses in early September.
Also present for the meeting will be representatives from Kimley-Horn and Associates. The company created the plan for the Stoney Creek Park project.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in the Green Room of the Herman Park Center on Ash Street. Recreation and Parks Director Neil Bartlett encouraged those affected by the flooding to attend the event.
Some of those who watched as water from Ernesto slowly filled up the store floors and parking lot at Barnyard said they knew the area was located in the flood plain but didn't expect anything short of a hurricane to damage their businesses.
Scarlet Beamon of Awards Gallery showroom was one of them.
"We came in this morning and everything was fine," she said when the waters hit. "I went to take the mail out and ... water was coming in the back door. It just kept on coming in. There's not much to say. It floods here. We just never did expect it this time."