We, the undersigned, urge you to immediately address the frequent flooding that occurs on Ackerman Drive behind the South Windermere Shopping Center. This flooding damages structures along Ackerman including the West Ashley library, and it blocks the only access to the Confederate Circle neighborhood of forty-five houses. The library has had to be renovated to repair flood damage several times over just the past three years.

Incidents of flooding on Ackerman are becoming more frequent. They occur both from king tides and from rain events even at low tide. Recently such flooding occurred five times in a two week period. This presents a terrible problem for the many business-owners and other professionals who need to get to their places of work. It's also a potentially life-threatening problem for the many elderly residents who can't get to medical appointments. Lack of emergency vehicle access during these events is also a potentially dangerous issue. There are a number of medically fragile residents on the circle.

The city sewer department has done some work on Ackerman drainage over the past year and the consensus among residents is that the changes have only exacerbated the problem.

We realize that there are many areas of Charleston frequently experiencing nuisance flooding, but we feel the problem here is of a different order both because of the lack of alternate routes and because of the relative ease with which we feel the problem could be addressed. One proposal is to create an access the the higher land of the South Windermere Center back parking lot, which would allow dry access to Confederate Circle but would not solve the damage to structures along Ackerman.

Our specific requests:

That the city quickly formally acknowledges this problem and expresses a desire to implement a solution in the near future
That an appropriate expert from the city examines the situation and proposes one or more mitigation plans
That a mitigation plan is chosen and finalized in conjunction with input from residents of the affected area.
That this plan is implemented within a year.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.