St. Cloud copes with flooded roads, disabled cars before peak of hurricane season
ST. CLOUD, Fla. - Over the weekend, some neighborhoods in St. Cloud got a glimpse of what this hurricane season may bring. The police department says they got half a foot of rain quickly, leading to widespread flooding in the city.
Police said the amount of rain was outside the norm, and no storm system could handle something like that. However, people with whom FOX 35 spoke, like Jahimael Hance, said they always see flooding.
"We need to fix the issue before it happens again," said Hance. Jahimael Hance hoped FOX 35 could help with that.
On Saturday, the City of St. Cloud received around half a foot of rain in just a few hours. Police had to direct traffic and help disabled cars all over the city. But Hance says this is nothing new in his neighborhood.
"That road gets mostly flooded a lot. And cars still try to decide to pass," said Hance.
Hance has lived in Anthem Park since 2007. He says the flooding problem started a few years ago. Now, he says, the roads flood whenever they get a hard rain, trapping him inside his house.
"It’s better to just stay home and stay safe, not go out in the flooded roads," he said.
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They tried contacting the HOA, but that went nowhere. FOX 35’s emails to the HOA didn’t get a response.
"Especially now that’s hurricane season, it’s much worse because we don’t want nobody to get stuck in flooding, nor have a disaster when it’s flooding," said Hance.
The City of St. Cloud communications director told FOX 35 that the city has "proactively performed maintenance on city storm inlets and drainage ditches and [that they] work with partners at the state and county for maintenance on drainage infrastructure that belongs to them."
Some of that proactive work involves drawing down water levels in lakes and ponds ahead of storm season so they have a greater capacity to take on more water. That’s why, by Monday, the roads in St. Cloud were dry. But the people in Anthem Park say they want more.
"We want this to stop so it does not continue damaging our homes nor being wanting to our houses," said Hance.
A few miles away, a 55-and-up community called Tohoqua Reserve flooded this weekend, too. That’s a brand-new development. One woman there wouldn’t go on camera but told FOX 35 Reporter Marie Edinger the flooding at her place was so bad that she had an extra drain installed in her backyard. She hopes the developers address it soon.
FOX 35 reached out to the developers but hasn’t heard back. So far, there’s no indication of whether the flooding concerns there result from the same issues happening in Anthem Park or whether there’s a different cause.