DeBARY, Fla. – As cleanup from Hurricane Milton begins across Central Florida, some are still dealing with flooding fears.
Streets in the Lakeside neighborhood in DeBary are flooded and people who live there are worried the water will creep into their homes.
News 6 was out there on Friday afternoon, when News 6 anchor Matt Austin interviewed DeBary City Manager Carmen Rosamonda live on air about the flooding.
(STORY CONTINUES BELOW)
We went back out there on Saturday morning to check in with neighbors and see if they could tell a difference.
“I think it went up maybe a couple of inches yesterday but then stayed there and then maybe this morning down a couple of inches,” Chris Van Singel said.
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
Rachel Hayes and her neighbor, Andrea Krazeise, have been back to check on their homes every day to make sure water hasn’t intruded.
“Yesterday, it was about an inch away from getting inside of my house. It’s in the garage, in the lanai, and it was just an inch away from the lift to get in the house,” Krazeise said. “My prayers is when I go down there that it’s either stayed or it’s an inch below.”
Hayes said she can’t tell a difference in the flooding on her street.
“I haven’t been down there yet,” Hayes said. “Our friend has and she said it’s not in the house yet. So we know it’s in the garage about quarter of the way in the garage. It was yesterday.”
Some neighbors said they could tell a difference, with one neighbor saying it had gone down an inch and a half since Friday.
“We got a state-of-the-art pumping system here, it pumps about 15,000 gallons a minute, unfortunately (we) have about 100,000,000 gallons here,” Rosamonda said.
Rosamonda was back out there Saturday morning where we were able to speak to him again.
He said groundwater is causing the flooding in the Lakeside neighborhood, but assures the pumps are working.
“We’re moving in the right direction, I wish it was a lot faster but we got 15 inches of rain in 12 hours and it’s just something that you can’t predict,” Rosamonda said.
He said he expects the flooding to definitely last a couple of days if not longer as the pumps continue to work to get rid of the water.
“Keeping it out of the houses is our major goal,” Rosamonda said. “It could flood the streets. We don’t really care about that. We just want to stay out of the houses. That’s our mission.”
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: