MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — A desire for change is why dozens of people spent their Saturday evening at Parrish United Methodist Church for a community meeting. 

What You Need To Know

  • Parrish community members gathered Saturday evening to talk about recent flooding in the community

  • Both meeting speakers and attending members have been affected by flooding the last few weeks

  • A petition has been started that will be sent to the county commission

The meeting was organized by Parrish community members who want to see Manatee County officials take action. 

Parrish community member Steve White is one of dozens of people who attended the meeting. He said his home has been devastated by flooding. 

"All my furniture is destroyed. My walls in my house were destroyed, my appliances were destroyed — I've lost everything," he said. "It's just devastating. So depressed and scared, because I have kids, eight and nine. Just a good thing we had a two-story house."

One of Saturday's speakers, Dalton Nelson, said the meeting was the first step that needed to be taken.

"We're trying to raise awareness for the community and tell them that somebody is here and somebody is looking into the problem," he said.  

Nelson said the purpose of the meeting is to educate the community on the current situation and to let everyone know what it may take to avoid future flooding.

"We're going to have an online petition," he said. " We're trying to get all the facts down of what we've experienced and everything like that. We're also trying to get people to fill out an affidavit, which essentially is going to document their experiences with the storm."

In a statement received from the Manatee County Director of Natural Resources Charlie Hunsicker about the recent flooding, he said:

“This was a massive rain event that simply overwhelmed all of our streams and tributaries. In some areas, the rainfall amounts were up to five times greater than the built systems were designed to handle.

It was and is a rain event. The county is currently working on enhanced communications protocols to better inform those who may be impacted from any events downstream from Lake Manatee."

White and Nelson said this response is not enough and it's part of the reason they and everyone else is at this meeting. 

Organizers are hopeful this will be the first of future meetings, and that down the line, the flooding they've seen recently will become a thing of the past. 

Those interested in signing the petition can visit manateeflooding.org.