River Bend is located in an area which is referred to as :"Hurricane Alley". During the past 20 years it has experienced two major hurricanes named Fran and Bertha. Each had created floods which h covered a large portion of the land area causing many thousands of dollars in damage to homes and several dozen autos and countless number of trees which blocked roadways. Most of the flooding began in the River Bend Pond which takes in the flood waters from across Highway 17. The outlets and distribution system were too small to drain off the water.
This was expected to be a costly construction job and the question was who will pay for it. Fortunately we have River Bender Roy Fogle, recognized as the top Grant's Writer in the Nation. He was also Economic Development Director for Jones County. Roy has written 37 grants for $5,116,555 for Jones County. Roy Fogle also completed five Grant Requests for Craven County totaling $1,500,000.
Without hesitation Roy Fogle volunteered to write a grant for FEMA grant to River Bend in 1996 for a storm water drainage project. This provided a great savings to the Town.
December 17, 2001 marks the beginning of the FEMA
flood control project. Councilman
John Kirkland (to left) and Project Engineer, Kevin Avolis (right) are
responsible for overseeing the job progress. Below you will see pictures
of the culvert at the Town Pond on Shoreline Drive. This has been
removed and replaced with two larger culverts designed to carry off excess water
from the pond. First stage involved the temporary raising of the telephone
lines to make way for the excavation of the current piping. You will see men
splicing in a new section of line in order to manually raise it out of the way
of the excavation. The roadway will be reduced to one lane while the
excavation is taking place. The roadway at this point will be raised
approximately 2 feet. During the last storm, it became impassable
because of flooding.
Shoreline Drive - Town Pond Culverts
Additional pictures of this project are continued on the next page. CONTINUE.
DRAINAGE PROJECTS
While the FEMA project is underway, the Town will continue with it's drainage projects with the assistance from the "Community Assistance Team" from the Newport Correction facility. A number of these projects have taken place but most are not seen by the general public as they are well back off the roads. These projects have involved a substantial amount of labor as the pictures below demonstrate.
The pictures below illustrate the drainage work along Shoreline Drive. (1) Inmate supervisor A.Q. Barlow lays out drainage ditch. (2) Marvin Boyd of the Public Works Department operates the front end loader and other digging equipment.. (3) & (4) Inmates manually digging drainage ditches.
The Norbury Project has been completed. Water run-off from the Norbury Drive area found it's way to a waterway which was eroding the area. This waterway has been extended and reinforced with hundreds of feet of riprap which was brought in by wheel barrow. This heavily wooded area was inaccessible to heavy equipment. Pictures #1, #2, #3 and #4 show the extended waterway and the riprapping of the exit which has been installed to reduce erosion.
The pictures below are of the Teakwood-Gangplank project. The water run-off from Gangplank and Teakwood Roads used a waterway which ran between two of the homes on Gangplank Road causing a flooded area behind the homes. A new drainage pipe has been installed by the "Community Assistance Team." This carries the flood water back to a pond which runs to the Trent River. The drain pipe below (picture #1, #2 and #3) has been covered over and riprap has been installed at the exit of the pipe (#4) and at the entrance to the pipe (#5)
To the left is one of the many long drainage ditches dug by hand by the "Community Assistance Team." They have done much to improve the appearance of River Bend.
