SANFORD, Fla. — Sanford officials say construction is underway to alleviate some of the flooding concerns in the city's historic Georgetown area.

The city of Sanford is adding extra pipes to help reduce flooding that can be seen during heavy rain events.

“We finally put two pipes through the seawall and that’s going to take some of the capacity from the other pipe that runs through (Fort Mellon) Park, which is 100 years old,” said Sanford Public Works Department project manager Jeff Davis.

Davis said the nearly $4 million project is focused specifically on alleviating the flooding that happens on 7th and 8th streets in Georgetown.

“What the water does is it ponds, and it doesn’t drain like it should,” he said. “So what we’re trying to do is add more volume to the infrastructure so that it does take it and move it out to the river quick enough.”

Sissy Atkinson lives near the corner of Cypress Avenue and 8th Street and says flooding is a problem in the area.

“The front yard of the street completely gets flooded,” she said. “And the water probably goes up 10 inches in the road. It takes a while for it to go down.

Atkinson said the flooding is especially bad during storms like last year’s Hurricane Ian.

“If it floods like that it is very difficult to get to the vehicle or move the vehicle because (the road is) covered with water,” she said.

Work on the Georgetown drainage improvement project is expected to wrap up by the end of next year.

More projects are planned to improve drainage in other areas as well.

“The old box culvert, which is over 100 years old, it just can’t handle the capacity of the water coming from upstream anymore,” said Davis. “So basically what we’re going to do is we’re going to improve the drainage all the way up to 25th Street, eventually.”