HOLLY HILL, Fla. – People who live in Holly Hill are still cleaning up after what the mayor called the worst flooding in the city’s history from Hurricane Milton. Many residents told News 6 they are still seeing raw sewage come up and into their yards and hope city leaders have a plan to upgrade its sewage and water infrastructure.
“What is the city going to do about our sewer? It malfunctions every time we have a storm. Sometimes when we just have heavy rain,” said resident Mary Nichols.
News 6 first spoke with Nichols and her neighbors immediately after the storm in the Anniston Avenue area and again on Wednesday. Nichols showed the aftermath of what the flooding left behind.
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“They’re ripping out everything in their house. They’re gutting their homes,” Nichols said.
Her neighbor, Traci Anderson, said she’s at a loss for how to move forward after the flooding.
“This is the third flood. I can’t physically do it anymore. I’m too tired and where are we going to go? Nobody is going to buy our homes,” she said.
Though the flood water is gone, these residents said raw sewage is still bubbling up in some people’s properties.
The mayor said the public works department is working around the clock on the immediate sewage issue.
“They’re going out to mitigate it, to clean it up, to make it stop immediately. We have pumps running nonstop so that it won’t come back out and we have to come up with a permanent solution,” said Mayor Chris Via.
Via said the permanent solution is needed to the city’s 80-year-old, crumbling infrastructure. He said the city has invested nearly three million to address flooding in the last two years.
“Currently, the city is undergoing a city wide study to tell us exactly what projects could happen, at what dollar amount they need to be funded, and how much flood water that will affect,” he said.
The city will be holding a workshop to address flooding on Oct. 30 at 4 p.m.
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