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Potential heavy rain could cause issues in Central
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CENTRAL - Central Resident John Winkler's front yard is currently being dug up by the city. He says in the decades that he's lived in Central, his home only flooded last August.
"Last August, everything plastic that I had floated away so I know it ended up in all of the ditches. So it's me and everybody," he said. "Everybody had to have a new garbage can so you know that that is in the ditches somewhere between here and wherever."
But with all the construction going on in his drains, he's not positive about it staying dry if Tropical Depression Harvey turns out to be serious.
"I don't know that the city can be prepared that quick," he said.
Currently, crews are working the second area of nine around the city at 17 different drains. So far they've removed around 91 tons of debris.
Mayor Junior Shelton is optimistic about the $4 million improvement plan.
"As they're continuing to work, they're finding new sites along the way that they were not able to access to begin with. It's a long way to go, but they're making progress," Shelton said.
But residents like Winkler are getting impatient while they await results.
"I get the updates on facebook and I know they're north of here but I haven't seen them down here," Winkler said.
For now, Mayor Shelton says the city should be fine with next week's rainfall.
"I'm not worried if we're going to get the rainfall that they're predicting now, because we've had some rain of this same type going on and we've had some success with the work we've already done, so I'm not terribly worried about it. However, with any rain you do worry that something new is going to crop up so we will have crews on standby 24/7," said Shelton.
Shelton says they should have a more definite plan in place, including where to get sandbags, on Thursday.
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