How Storm Waters Affect Winterville,
Pitt County, North Carolina
What happens in one small place can affect the whole country. Hurricane Katrina only touched ground in Louisiana but it created disastrous flooding all over the east coast due to the large river systems. This happened because of storm water runoff. To understand how these things happens, you must first know what storm water runoff is!
What is Storm Water Runoff?
Storm water runoff affects our rivers and water systems and plays a huge part in the water cycle. It is the unfiltered water that reaches streams, lakes, sounds, and oceans by ways of flowing across impermeable surfaces. These surfaces include roads, sidewalks, parking lots, driveways, and roofs.
Local Storm Water Phenomena
Recently, parts of the coast suffered from Hurricane Irene. The coast was only a small area that the hurricane actually hit but what happened here in Winterville affected Pitt County too. What affected Pitt County affected our entire state, and possibly even more. In just North Carolina, farmers all over had to pull up their crops and there was an estimated $6.3 billion loss. There were colossal floods all over the state just from the few coastal rivers like the Tar, the Neuse, and the Pamlico. All rivers connect to other streams and lakes so Irene caused floods across the entire state. As of Saturday, August 27, the storm water levels built up and the river water levels grew and grew to the point of 15 or 20 feet waters. The same thing occurred in 1997 when Hurricane Floyd hit. The system only touched down in a small part of North Carolina but the massive storm waters travelled through the Tar, Neuse, Pamlico and Cape Fear rivers to reach the central and western parts of our state causing huge amounts of damage everywhere.