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On stormy days, Sheri Downing-Futrell says her driveway is more like a river than a place to park her car.

The Wheaton resident's home sits at the bottom of Henderson Avenue, a small street stretching from Georgia Avenue to Wheaton Regional Park that Downing-Futrell and her neighbors say desperately needs an overhaul to fix frequent flooding, massive potholes and crumbled pavement.

Last week, after six years of lobbying for help from the county, the County Council's Transportation and Environment committee recommended spending $2.3 million to install storm drains and curbs along Henderson Avenue and completely re-paving the road.

As of now, the 40-home street has no storm drains, sidewalks or curbs and thus no way to mitigate what Mother Nature dumps on the neighborhood. Much of it ends up in resident's yards, driveways and basements. And the pavement is so deteriorated that when the county's snow plows trucked through Henderson Avenue last month, they took pavement with the snow, residents said.

"We won't even repair the driveway because so much debris comes down it that it's just going to tear it back up," said Downing-Futrell, who currently lives in Philadelphia and rents the house to tenants.

Downing-Futrell said she was told by county employees about six years ago that the street was too small for such renovations, which would cost millions. Since then, she and other residents have drawn petitions and sent e-mails, pictures and horror stories of flooding to county and state officials every few months.

County Council staff said the project is so expensive because it requires moving utilities and digging underground to install the drains. But a budget of just over $2 million should cover it, according to committee staff estimates.

The approval comes as County Executive Isiah Leggett suggested earlier this year to almost double the budget for storm water management in the county, from almost $8 million to $14 million over the next six years. His staff cited a need to fix Henderson Avenue as a reason to raise the budget.

Kim Persaud, the president of the Wheaton Regional Park Civic Association and a Henderson Avenue resident, said she was pleasantly surprised Henderson Avenue's road improvements were kept in the budget during a year when county officials are cutting costs to only the necessities.

Two years ago, a similar proposal for Henderson Avenue was taken out of the budget because of lack of funds. Persaud said her neighborhood was demoralized as the road's condition worsened through several large snow storms.

"I thought the county should be paying for our chiropractor appointments," she joked in reference to the bumpy, almost impassable pavement that frequently broke up after storms.

Councilwoman Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring, who represents the residents on Henderson Avenue, said spending $2 million now on the 40 homes could save the county money in the long run.

"We're going to have to pay for it sooner or later," she said. And if it's later, Ervin said the county could have to pay two-fold for lawsuits when the flooding gets too bad or someone hurts themselves navigating the potholes.

"There might be a case for these neighbors because the county hasn't kept up the improvements, their basements are being flooded and destroyed and their yards are being destroyed," she said.

Ervin and her staff said they don't believe any lawsuits have currently been filed on the subject but added it's not out of the realm of possibility.

"There's a lot of private property impacted by the county's failure to maintain it," Ervin said.

If the full council approves the project in May, construction is expected to start in the summer of 2011 and take one year to complete.

For now, Downing-Futrell said she'll have to make do with the giant palates of rock she set up behind her children's playground in the backyard to redirect the flow of water.

"I can't get rid of the water, but at least I can make it so it didn't destroy the whole yard," she said.