City of Simpsonville officials and staff are working hard on the stormwater flooding issues affecting our residents. Rest assured that we are not sitting on our hands. At my request on behalf of City Council, staff is exploring a stricter set of rules to propose for new construction and improving our standards from requiring plans for the 25-year storm threshold up to a 100-year storm threshold. These actions would change where new construction can be built and what level of stormwater retention is required. We will have the initial workings of a plan to present to Council very soon.

As your mayor, I am also representing you in our state capital. I took a trip to Columbia in the last week of February with the American Flood Coalition to get the attention of our lawmakers in the General Assembly. The AFC is a nonpartisan advocacy group that addresses flooding across the country.

As a mayor with a just cause and an invitation, I was going to be joined by a few other dedicated elected officials, including City of Conway Mayor Barbara Blain-Bellamy. She is an amazing person, amazing mayor, and a perfect spokesperson for the AFC. With all those high-powered folks there, I had a simple plan: stand in the back and be a cheerleader, but plans changed.

For various legitimate reasons, the other elected officials were unable to make it. I suddenly (and unexpectedly) found myself walking from the dugout to home plate: “Batter up, Mayor Shewmaker!”

Me?!??

Next thing I knew, I was leading our team into the Senate Majority Leader’s office to speak on behalf of the American Flood Coalition. Later in the day, they put me in front of a TV camera. It was a whirlwind of a day meeting senators, representatives and influential staff members.

Here’s the good news. My time in the batter’s box turned out to be simple: express appreciation for the actions taken by General Assembly members to address flooding. The House Ways and Means Committee led by Speaker Murrell Smith has already put $38.1 million of funding in the proposed budget for the South Carolina Office of Resilience. A large chunk of that money would be accessible to cities and counties across the state if the budget is approved.

Let’s remain optimistic but realistically optimistic. It appears this funding has good support in the Senate, and Governor McMaster has supported the creation and continued work of SCOR. The budget still needs to be approved by the Senate and signed by the Governor. He’ll have his own budget plans to submit before it’s all said and done.

And again: we need to be realistically optimistic. Thirty-eight million is not nothing, but when it comes to flooding, it’s not a whole lot either. There have been over $7 billion in flooding losses in South Carolina over the last 12 years. Since figures like that are hard to comprehend, I think about the thick binder that SCOR passed around when we met with them. It describes problems from across the state and was so thick and heavy that you could use it for weightlifting at the gym.

The staff at SCOR have lined the walls of their hallways in pictures of flooded out homes from all over South Carolina. I think this is to remind them of how important their work is and to show some places where they have helped. It also provides some perspective as we move forward to do all we can to address flooding in Simpsonville. It’s a perspective to keep in mind: flooding is truly a statewide problem and some folks have it way worse than we do. We need to prevent this problem from becoming as bad in Simpsonville as it is in other communities. We also need regional planning. We can do everything right inside Simpsonville, but if our neighbors outside the city limits don’t work together with us, we’ll still have problems.

Anyway, despite ending up in the batter’s box when I had planned to cheer from the dugout, it turned out to be a good day. Just goes to show, you never know when a curveball is coming and what can happen if you take a swing and hope for the best. That’s all any of us with the City of Simpsonville can do: our best to make Simpsonville feel Simply Home for residents and visitors.

Thanks for the support.

Cheers,

Mayor Paul

p.s. I’m going with the American Flood Coalition to Washington, D.C. in May to advocate for the Simpsonville community in Congress. It’s the federal government so wish me luck. And by the way, here is the most important point: your support matters and matters most. Contact your legislators and let them know how important the flooding issue is.

PHOTOS: Mayor Paul Shewmaker (fifth from the left) and the American Flood Coalition meet with Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, fifth from the right.