SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — As people drove past the now-familiar news crew on N. Shadowbay Boulevard Friday, they rolled down their windows and shouted the same question again and again.
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“Any updates?” they inquired with hope.
In between their cars and the crew, standing water covered stormwater grates and once-carefully maintained grass, unable to get to lower ground. The deep puddles were wide enough to discourage jumping over in most places.
The neighborhood has dealt with flood waters ever since April, when a homeowner hired a concrete truck to fill and block the community’s drainpipe because she was unhappy it ran underneath her home without payment.
The pipe had existed long before she moved in as a part of an easement the developer incorporated to build out the cul-de-sac-filled streets. However, the unique setup of the community meant the HOA didn’t cover the pipe-unhappy homeowner, allowing her to exploit an enforcement loophole.
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“When it storms this neighborhood floods,” Julia Herndon said, bitterly.
So far, water from small and medium rain storms has risen high enough to completely cover over speed bumps in the road, but it has not made it past people’s driveways.
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The potential for a tropical storm to move in over the weekend raised alarms up and down the road. This scenario is what the community had been fearing, causing them to beg Seminole County for a fix.
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County staff pointed out that the entire community was private, giving them limited capabilities until an emergency happened. Code enforcement has threatened to begin fining the homeowner $300 per day if the pipe isn’t fixed or replaced in the next week.
The HOA president stood at the community sand pile Friday, helping Herndon and others fill bags to give their properties additional protection.
“Very worried,” Herndon summarized. “Even though I live at the end, it does affect the coming and going -- maybe an emergency and ambulance a fire truck. It does affect all the neighborhood.”
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