MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — Some Manatee County residents are still mopping up after Debby. They say flooding continues, and now they are appealing to the county for solutions. An upcoming meeting is planned to address the problem.

Dalton Nelson, who has lived near Jim Davis Road in Parrish for more than 20 years, has seen many storms come and go, but he says he hasn’t seen anything like the water left by recent storms.

“We have seen water before, but not this bad,” he said.

Nelson owns more than 50 acres of land near Jim Davis Road, and most of it is flooded.

“The developments and all the rain, I mean, look at the water. It’s saturated; there’s nowhere for it to go,” he said.

He says that whenever it rains, the area floods.

A flyer created by Michele Schmacker and Carol Feltz advertising the community meeting. 

“Amazing that it was just a one-day storm, not even a couple of hours, and this was the result,” he said.

He’s had to board up his horses, cows, and other animals since Debby because the ground is so saturated.

“This area right here is normally dry after a major storm. Maybe a couple of days, and it’s dry. It’s super horrible,” he said.

At the height of the storm, the water was really high, and he’s worried it could happen again.

“When you see the bottom box of this feeder, it was all the way at the top—it was at my chest. The water was at my chest,” he said.

The flooding has cost him more than just the displacement of animals.

“That’s at least $20,000. And the tools and everything else are probably creeping up to $30,000 or $40,000, somewhere in there, depending on, you know, every day prices now. Everything’s so expensive. It’s horrible,” he said.

He’s hoping the county will do something about runoff from developments and the Lake Manatee Dam.

“I tell everybody—I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but if we don’t talk about these issues, if we don’t have real conversations, we’re all going to lose. We’re not going to win this fight,” he said.

Nelson says he’ll continue pushing for solutions while waiting for the water to recede.

On Saturday, September 7, residents are holding a meeting to discuss the flooding problems. It will be held at the Parrish United Methodist Church and starts at 5 p.m. Then, on Tuesday, September 10, Manatee County commissioners are expected to discuss this topic at their regularly scheduled meeting.

Going back to August 27 Manatee County commissioners meeting the County’s Natural Resources Director Charlie Hunsicker responded to the issues with the Lake Manatee Dam, saying this:

“My answer to all this is 17 inches of rain. I don’t mean to reduce the anger and suspicion that the Manatee River somehow created a backwater effect on the Braden River but it’s absolutely untrue it did not,” he said.

The Deputy County Administrator Evan Pilachowski addressed both flooding and the Lake Manatee Dam during Tuesday, August 27 Manatee County Commissioners meeting.

“First, I do want to really reinforce we are fully sympathetic and we know there is real suffering for many other residents who experience flooding throughout the storm and subsequent rainfall events I do not want to minimize that if there is anything I said during videos or in person with anyone that has caused offense or interpreted as gaslighting I sincerely apologize for that,” Pilachowski said.

“It is not a flood controlled structure. It is a flow of river water supply reservoir for the majority of the drinking water for Manatee County residents and part of Sarasota County. It is a 6 billion gallon reservoir,” he continued.

“During all of Hurricane Debby we released 18 billion gallons of water that flowed through the reservoir so the 6 billion gallon reservoir is simply not big enough to act as both the water supply reservoir and a storm retention reservoir there is no way to put 18 billion gallons into a 6 billion gallon container so In those cases we have no choice but to allow the water to flow through and protect the infrastructure of the dam so we make sure the counties continue to have water supply.”