ROCKPORT, Texas — Flooding this past week has affected both residents and businesses and they are suggesting that Rockport city leaders do more to help flooding issues.
Kacie Stanfoed is the owner of Rowdy Maui, a boutique gallery in Rockport. She said she had to close down her business earlier in the week because of the flooding and said she doesn’t feel like businesses are prioritized by the city.
“I understand we’re not always the top priority but it’s still, this is a lot of our livelihoods, these are our businesses, we’ve been here for many years,” Stanford said.
She suggested the city put barricades to prevent flooding from reaching local businesses like hers and said the city knows flooding has been an issue for years when it rains heavily, but they don’t consider how it can affect businesses.
“It does affect tourism which you know summer is our busy season here in Rockport. We get a lot of tourists from out of town so if they can't come out and shop, we can't make sales,” she said.
Alex Resteloi is a local resident of Rockport who moved from San Antonio about a year ago. He said flooding wasn’t much of an issue in San Antonio because they had a better drainage system. He said in Rockport it’s hard to get around because of the limited amount of sidewalks and that could hurt access to businesses.
“People have to walk you know say from one side of town to the other to get to the stores and what not and they should probably put more sidewalks,” he said.
Andrea Montemayor-Weiler was visiting Rockport from Virigina, where she now lives, but she was born and raised in Rockport. She said she’s not surprised that she came back to see flooding because the city has never done anything about it. She said potholes have been an issue ever since she was a kid and the city should be redirecting their money to solve the flooding.
“We’ve grown but not in the right environment as to taking care of the roads and doing for the locals that pay high taxes. Our taxes are going high,” Montemayor-Weiler said.
She said city leaders should be stepping up and addressing the flooding issues because they have been a recurring problem and that they should start asking questions about why the flooding is so prevalent. She also said she just wants to see improvements like better drainage to help the city solve flooding problems.
“Please take care of our little town, really, this is all we have.”
KRIS 6 News reached out to the city of Rockport, but their phone system doesn’t allow voicemails to be left, so we contacted the Rockport Police Department but they told us the utilities department isn’t open until Monday.
