At a recent church service in Cleveland, a group of visitors from a rural Alabama community nearly 900 miles away, including pastor and business owner Timothy Williams, joined the congregation in singing the spiritual “I Don’t Mind Waiting.”
Williams is used to waiting.
After six years frequent floodsassurances from both presidential administrations and top officials, homeowners like Williams who live in the majority-Black Shiloh community say they are still waiting to be completed by state and federal agencies.
Timothy Williams gives Dr. Robert Bullard a tour of the Highway 84 drainage system and the flooding in Shiloh.
Jared Kofsky/ABC News
Now, with the Biden administration ending on Monday, they feel they are running out of time.
“The longer they hold us up, the worse things get,” said Williams, who has been advocating for Shiloh since 2018, after community members told the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) of a project aimed at widening a nearby highway. to flooding in their properties.
When the state disclaimer Because of the flooding, community leaders turned to the federal government for help. In September 2022, the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration opened an investigation into their concerns.
The administration says it aims to complete the investigation within six months, but after a year without a resolution, Shiloh residents turned their efforts to reaching America’s top transportation official: US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Shiloh residents became hopeful about Buttigieg last spring they traveled to their community to see how runoff from the widened highway flowed onto their properties. He walked the historic community, listening to residents and telling them Washington would make things right.
Timothy Williams guides Buttigieg and Bullard through the Shiloh community.
Maia Rosenfeld/ABC News
He says the people of Shiloh were anticipating what was to come, but when the federal investigation ended in October — more than two years after it began — as a result The Voluntary Settlement Agreement with ALDOT was not as expected.
The agreement required the state to mitigate future flooding in Shiloh, but did not address existing property damage. He also did not assign blame for the flood, and questioned whether any government entity is responsible for compensating residents for their losses.
“We are coordinating closely with the Federal Highway Administration in efforts to meet the terms of the Voluntary Resolution Agreement,” ALDOT spokesman Tony Harris told ABC News.
On the brink of another administration shakeup, Williams wants Buttigieg to give Shiloh more resources in its final days.
“We want a binding written agreement that will cover damage to people’s homes and their property and make people whole,” Williams said. “That’s all we ask of him and he can do it.”
A spokesman for the US Department of Transportation, however, said the secretary could not respond to that request.
ABC News shows coverage of flooding in the Shiloh community in Alabama to Cleveland faith leaders in December 2024.
Jared Kofsky/ABC News
“Congress has not authorized any programs or funding for DOT that can provide emergency relief directly to struggling communities, so this whole-of-government approach is essential to help the Shiloh community access federal assistance not available through DOT alone.” spokesperson told ABC News.
The Shiloh flood has impacts ranging from transportation to housing to the environment, spanning the jurisdictions of a network of federal agencies. Some of those departments are participating in a task force led by the U.S. Department of Transportation to identify resources available for Shiloh, Environmental Protection Agency spokesman James Pinkney told ABC News.
“EPA shared all funding opportunities and technical assistance available to the community,” Pinkney wrote, adding that members of the Shiloh community applied for the EPA grant program in November.
Because the Voluntary Settlement Agreement did not assign responsibility for the flooding, the responsibility for finding government funds to repair the flood damage has largely fallen to Shiloh community members. Now they say they have been dealing with bureaucracy while their houses are filled with water.
With the clock ticking down on another Trump administration, Shiloh community leaders are worried they’ll be left behind. They are no longer waiting for federal agencies to come to them.
In December, Williams and her daughter traveled from Alabama to Ohio, where Buttigieg was scheduled to speak at the City Club of Cleveland.
In his speech, Buttigieg discussed his administration’s achievements, including addressing infrastructure disparities in vulnerable communities.
“Many communities had transportation projects done to them rather than with them, often because they didn’t have the wealth or political power to deal with them or redevelop them,” Buttigieg said.
Listening next to the Williams family were their supporters: Shiloh native Dr. Robert Bullard, known as the “father of environmental justice” for his pioneering research, and representatives of the Sierra Club.
Dr. Robert Bullard and Dr. Timothy Williams deliver a petition about the community of Shiloh, Alabama to a representative of the U.S. Department of Transportation at the agency’s headquarters on January 14, 2025.
Jared Kofsky/ABC News
“The purpose of transportation is to connect, and yet there were many places where transportation worked to divide, sometimes contributing to racial and economic division,” Buttigieg told the audience. “We can do something about it, and we are doing it.”
In the case of Shiloh, however, what can be done and who should do it is not clear. Meanwhile, the flood continues.
Asked by ABC News if he would meet with the Shiloh families who came to Cleveland, Buttigieg said he “wanted to take that directly with them.”
“We will continue to do everything we can, within and beyond any formal and official steps, to try to help that community, because I will never forget what they are going through,” Buttigieg said.
After being denied another meeting with the secretary, Williams and Bullard put together a petition with about 5,000 signatures asking for a binding agreement to cover damage to residents’ property.
Representatives from the Shiloh community in Alabama, the Sierra Club and the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice are seen outside the US Department of Transportation headquarters on January 14, 2025 in Washington.
Jared Kofsky/ABC News
On Tuesday, the group traveled another 900 miles to Washington to deliver the request directly to the US Department of Transportation before Buttigieg’s term ends.
“We want to see a win,” Bullard said. “How this community beat all odds and got the federal government resources to make it whole.”
Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous joined the group to demand justice for Shiloh.
“Their community has been turned into a drainage ditch by the Alabama Department of Transportation with U.S. Department of Transportation dollars,” Jealous said.
Timothy Williams and Dr. Robert Bullard traveled to US Department of Transportation headquarters.
Jared Kofsky/ABC News
After relentless flooding and tireless advocacy, Shiloh’s 150-year legacy still hangs. As Washington’s politics progress, their homes continue to sink and the spills drown out their generational wealth.
Bullard stressed that there is still time for Washington to act.
“There have already been two administrations that have allowed this to happen,” Bullard said. “This should not — and does not — bleed into a third administration.”
ABC News Senior National Correspondent Steve Osunsami contributed to this report.
