VALRICO, Fla. — Residents in the Feather Rock community in Valrico still have flooded streets, nine days after Hurricane Milton. Now, they say they’re reaching their breaking point and need some help getting the water out, since it’s not draining on its own.
Carlos Angelucci lives in Feather Rock, and he says he’s never seen anything like the flooding after Hurricane Milton.
“You see, from over there, all the way down to over here, this is all water,” Angelucci said as he pointed to his backyard, which now looks more like a lake thanks to Hurricane Milton.
In the nine days, the water has only receded a little.
“The water was about 3.5 feet almost to here because I put a on a plastic bag to turn on the main breakers, about 3.5,” Angelucci said.
Thankfully, the water didn’t make it into Angelucci’s home, but some of his neighbors at the front of the community weren’t as lucky, and because the flooding is still so bad, they haven’t even been able to go home.
“We have displaced families, and some of those members of those families are disabled and they’re in wheelchairs and they can’t go through flood waters or go through any contaminated waters to get back to their homes,” said Marie Maughan, who also lives in Feather Rock.
Maughan’s home is says she’s reached out to every public official you can think of, asking for help to remove all the water so the residents here in Feather Rock can all come home.
“I would really like some help from our County Commissioner Christine Miller and her office to see if we can get people who have water pumps and tankers to remove this water, so they can disburse it on a dry field somewhere, or take it where it needs to be treated and then disbursed where it needs to go,” she said.
Hillsborough County’s Public Works department released this statement when we asked about the Feather Rock flooding:
“Since Milton brought historic record rainfall amount of 10-15 inches, and the county was already saturated by heavy rainfalls in advance of the storm, Hillsborough County has experienced significant and historic flooding in our rivers as well as the creeks and tributaries. The County’s stormwater team is continually monitoring flooded areas to ensure the drainage system is open and not obstructed. The cause of the continued flooding is that the downstream creeks and natural waterbodies remain at a high level due to the historic rainfall levels from Milton. To put it simply, there is still nowhere to pump the water. We basically have a water traffic jam – the water has nowhere to go right now. We are monitoring this situation in the field closely – at this location and across the County – with portable pumps ready to deploy as conditions allow.”