A North Little Rock man wants the city to clean out a storm drain that he says caused him tens of thousands of dollars worth of property damage after it flooded.
“To the right side, it's pretty much closed off all the way to the ceiling to the culvert," explains Mark George. "We're looking at piles of shopping carts. We're looking at gas piping. We’re looking at bicycle tires."
George also has a picture of a refrigerator floating in a storm drain just feet away from his 12 rental units on Allen Street in North Little Rock. "All the water in this area channels into this ditch underneath the railroad tracks and on down to the pump station," says George. "Well, if you have clogs, it's not going to get there."
Instead, all that rain from last week ended up in all 12 of his apartment units. "You can see where this is bubbling, it's soft, we'll have to come back in here and cut it," George explains.
"We could tell the refrigerator had floated, that's how bad it was," says Ashley Brooks. Brooks and her one-year-old daughter are living with family while her apartment is repaired.
"They need to do something about it," says Brooks.
"We've had an ongoing battle with the city of North Little Rock trying to get them to attend to our drainage system over here," says George. He goes on to say he contacted the city about flooding issues two years ago and that's when he says the city cleared debris from the open portion of the ditch but not inside the culverts.
Because of this flooding, most of George’s tenants are displaced while he repairs each unit. The price tag is about $30,000. George didn't have flood insurance on this particular property and will be paying out of pocket.
We tried to contact the city Wednesday, but when we called they were already closed.
