Weather conditions to improve
By Pat Hatfield
posted Aug 21, 2008 - 5:26:16pm
UPDATED 6 P.M. The St. Johns River at DeLand is near flood stage today. The DeLand marker read 3.85 feet at 2:24 p.m. Flood stage is at 4.2 feet.
Some minor flooding is expected the next few days, particularly at camp sites and trailers on Hontoon Island State Park.
By Wednesday, Aug. 27, the river is expected to hit its peak level, with a maximum reading of 4.6 at the DeLand marker, as water from Brevard and Volusia rainfalls work their way into the north-flowing St. Johns.
That's nearly half a foot above flood stage. Flooding could completely submerge docks and piers at Pier 44 Marina, and move river water into roads and yards of homes along the river.
Flooding is also expected around Lake Beresford, the lower end of Lakeview Drive, Lake Beresford Yacht Club and Sunrise.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) put into effect an emergency idle-speed, no-wake zone for boats on the river. That's defined as the lowest speed needed to maintain steering and forward motion.
Joy Hill, public information coordinator for the commission, said, "With the water high like this, one reason for the no-wake zone is to prevent as much property damage as possible."
Boat wakes push water onto already soggy property, causing more damage. Wakes cause environmental damage to river banks, as well.
Another reason for no-wake zones is to protect boats and boaters. At flood stage, objects can float submerged, unseen by boaters.
"Going slower is less dangerous," she said.
Hill noted other things to look for around the river when the water is high.
She said, "Some of the critters that normally stay within the banks of the river — alligators, fish, turtles, other aquatic animals — will be liberated, and will end up in places they usually aren't, such as porches, front yards, pools and garages, so be vigilant and avoid contact with them."
Flooding will displace some land animals, who may look for shelter in places like the front porches of homes. Residents should be watchful, she said.
Do not try to rescue animals from the water, Hill warned. These animals are stressed, and there's a greater danger they will bite or attack would-be saviors. She knows it's tough for animal lovers not to act.
Flooding will have an impact on individual animals, who may not survive, but the populations are strong enough to survive, Hill said.
To report fish and wildlife emergencies and violations, call the Wildlife Alert Hotline at 1-888-404-3922.
National Guard on standby
The Florida National Guard is on standby in Volusia County should there be a need to evacuate residents from the flooded areas of South Volusia County.
“The likelihood exists that we will have to assist residents who may be trapped in their homes without the ability to leave because of flooded roads,” said Volusia County Emergency Management Director Charlie Craig.
Volusia emergency responders are watching the entire South Volusia area closely, especially the very rural Osteen area. Tropical Storm Fay has dumped close to 24 inches of rain on parts of West Volusia.
Local flooding exists in DeLand, Orange City, DeBary and unincorporated south Volusia. Rising waters of the St. Johns River will be a concern for the next several days as well, Craig said.
By mid-day Friday, Volusia County Emergency Management, in coordination with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office and Volusia County Fire Services, had arranged for 14 Guardsmen and three large, amphibious trucks to be in the area should evacuation become necessary.
Evacuees would be sheltered at the Volusia County Fairgrounds, Tommy Lawrence Arena at 3150 East State Road 44 in DeLand.
UPDATED 3 P.M. FRIDAY: Though the tropical storm warning for Volusia County has been discontinued, the threat of flooding remains through late afternoon. At 2:51 p.m., the National Weather Service advised scattered to numerous showers will move northeast across West Volusia, bringing brief but torrential downpours. There could be some lightning. An outer rain band from Tropical Storm Fay could sit stationary over the area, producing local flooding.
The City of DeBary called a special city council meeting at 5 p.m. tonight, at Florence K. Little Town Hall at 12 Colomba Road. Topics will be the flooding emergency and FEMA.
Watch video of flooding woes in Debary.
A rain gauge at the City of Deltona's water plant measured 20.3 inches of rain since last night, city information officer Lee Lopez said. The Public Works Department has ordered two additional pumps to assist in draining areas affected by high water.
High-water areas include:
• Bloomfield Avenue at Tivoli Drive
• North Normandy Boulevard at Swallow Street
• Tivoli Drive at Wheeling Avenue
• Roberts Boulevard and East Hancock Drive
• Debary Avenue between Deltona Boulevard and Main Street
• Piedmont Drive between Normandy Boulevard and Farley Court
All retention ponds are at maximum capacity.
City water has been unaffected by flooding, and is still safe for drinking and cooking, at last report.
UPDATED 2 P.M. FRIDAY: DEBARY OFFERS BOTTLED WATER TO CITY FLOOD VICTIMS. Safety Officer and Volunteer Coordinator Alan Williamson reported the City of DeBary is distributing bottled water to DeBary residents who have suffered flooding. Many wells have been contaminated by flood waters.
Williamson said one 24-bottle case of water is available per family, at Florence K. Little Town Hall, at 12 Colomba Road, just behind the fire station. He said to bring ID showing DeBary residency.
Many of the same problems that plagued DeBary after the 2004 hurricanes are back.
DeBary, hard hit with flooding in 2004, is waterlogged again.
DeBary's condition is "not so good — everybody's flooded," Mayor George Coleman reported about 11 a.m. this morning.
He was hoping a break in the clouds would last a while, as he headed to Pine Valley Court in the Glen Abbey subdivision, an area of heavy flooding. He was also planning to check road conditions at the entrance to DeBary Golf & Country Club, where waters were rising, also. Both places had severe flooding in 2004.
This time, "It's not that we weren't prepared. It's that it is overwhelming," Coleman said.
City workers started running pumps in Lake Susan and No Name Lake a few days ago, trying to get a head start on pumping operations.
Now, Coleman said, the city is bringing in pumping trucks, as it did after the 2004 hurricanes, to try and reduce water levels more quickly. The city is using prisoners from the county jail to help with labor.
State Rep. Alan Hays promised help, as did Dick Harkey of U.S. Rep. John Mica's office.
Also, County Council Member Pat Northey called, and offered whatever help the county can provide, Coleman said.
But, the mayor said, "There's going to be water in peoples' houses. There's nothing we can do."
DeBary was one of the hardest-hit areas in the county after the 2004 hurricanes. A layer of clay muck sits beneath most of the city, preventing rain water from percolating into the aquifer. The layer sits below surface dirt like a bowl, and when it's full, it overflows.
"Most people have been pretty reasonable," Coleman said, in understanding the problems, but they are concerned.
Now, a small sinkhole has apparently opened at DeBary Villas. See the 1:15 p.m. update and photos posted with this story.
Meanwhile, Lake Helen looked like a tree slaughterhouse in 2004, with downed trees tangled in power lines.
Some of the same is happening again.
East Kicklighter Road is flooding, and so is Lake Macy Park, along with the streets around it.
A huge tree limb fell from one of the trees next to City Hall at 327 S. Lakeview Dr. today. While it did no damage to the recently renovated City Hall, it pulled down telephone and power lines, cutting service to City Hall.
A Police Department spokeswoman said, "We've probably had 30 trees down." Power outages have been extensive. "We're worried about old trees coming up, just uprooting."
In Orange City, flooding problems continue at Fish Memorial Hospital-Orange City. Officials said they are diverting ambulances to other area hospitals, but not turning away residents who come in for emergency services. They said to go to the front door, avoiding the emergency room entrance, where the flooding problems are.
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UPDATED 1:15 P.M. FRIDAY: And then, suddenly, there was sunshine.
The dry glow West Volusia hasn't seen for four days returned to the DeLand area about noon Friday, as Tropical Storm Fay continued to move west across the northern part of Florida.
The weather forecast for inland Volusia County, however, indicates the area may still experience numerous showers through the weekend, including brief, torrential downpours with some strong winds possible, until the tropical airmass covering the area dissipates completely.
"Areas where enough heating occurs will also receive occasional lightning strikes," according to the forecasters at Weather Underground.
It will take time and lots more sunshine to relieve the flooding problems that have developed in West Volusia. Some of the reports we have received at The Beacon office:
• The Industrial Drive area of Orange City has thigh-deep water in areas. Several businesses are flooded.
• An apparent sinkhole has opened up in the DeBary Villas condominium complex, on the north side of town, off U.S. Highway 17-92 between Saxon Boulevard and Enterprise Road. The sinkhole is in the parking area, where the parking lot and sidewalk collapsed; the management has evacuated the buildings around the perimeter.
• U.S. Highway 17-92 has water across the road at Saxon Boulevard, but traffic was still going through at about noon. U.S. 17-92 was closed just south of Enterprise Road at about noon.
• Purdom Cemetery Lake in the Pierson area has risen by at least a foot, reported Ron Guyer of Pierson. Guyer said his rain gauge shows a total of 13 inches for the Fay event.
• The St. Johns River is expected to continue to rise over the next several days. The river is now a no-wake zone, to protect property along the banks.
• As of noon Friday, Aug. 22, Michael Arth in the Garden District in Downtown DeLand had recorded 17.3 inches of rain. For comparison, Arth said, he recorded 12.5 inches during Hurricane Frances and 5.85 inches during Hurricane Jeanne in 2004.
• Friday morning, Progress Energy reported 9,000 Volusia County customers without power. More detailed information about outages is available on the power company's Web site.
UPDATED 9 A.M. FRIDAY: Tropical Storm Fay is moving west, out of Volusia County, but it remains to be seen what damage she will cause before leaving for good.
At 8 a.m. Friday, forecasters at Weather Underground said the center of Fay was at 29.6 N and 82.4 W, or just west of Gainesville. The system, however, continued to dump rain and serve up some strong wind gusts in West Volusia.
Newly appointed DeLand City Manager Michael Pleus had his first full taste of the commitment required by the job, as he spent the night in his office Thursday, alert to reports of trouble from the tropical storm.
Friday morning Pleus said DeLand's stormwater system is still handling fairly well the 12.2 inches of rain dumped on the city since Monday.
"However, this could change if the rain doesn’t start to let up in the next 12 hours," Pleus said.
It may not. Rain is predicted for Friday and Saturday in West Volusia.
The City of DeLand is asking residents to stay off the roads until the storm clears, as some roads have standing water on them. The City of DeLand Police Department reminded motorists that any intersection where a traffic light is out should be treated as a four-way stop.
DeLand City Hall is closed today, but the city's information line will be staffed to answer the public’s questions, at (386) 740-5877.
Details about other closings, cancellations, sandbags and so forth are in the Volusia County updates posted in our West Volusia Wire section.
UPDATED 9:40 P.M. THURSDAY: Too much of a good thing. That may describe the situation in Central Florida, as a deluge douses the drought.
Unrelenting rains from the circling bands of Tropical Storm Fay have turned some homes in Deltona into lakefront property. Deltona reportedly received 19.89 inches of rain within the last 24 hours.
"I've declared a state of emergency," Mayor Dennis Mulder told The DeLand-Deltona Beacon. "There is a curfew until 6 a.m., because of standing water."
Historic rainfall, surpassing that of the hurricanes of 2004 and of Tropical Storm Gordon in 1994, has closed some streets. Click here, and scroll down, to see the list.
"I knew right away what areas would be bad. By 5 o'clock, they were much worse than anything I had ever seen in my life. It's never rained this way before," said Mulder, who grew up in Deltona and recalls the community before it became a city.
Some low-lying parts of Deltona have long been plagued by chronic drainage problems. Following Tropical Storm Gordon, Volusia County — which provided public works services then in Deltona — made drainage improvements in some areas, where water was prone to stand.
Stopgap relief in a northern section of the city came by diverting floodwaters to a sinkhole in the Lyonia Preserve, behind the Deltona Regional Library.
Other parts of Deltona are still susceptible to standing water after heavy rains, even though those neighborhoods are well above sea level.
These high-elevation areas, county officials once said, resemble soup bowls, with no outfall, no means of drainage.
"You think you can engineer these problems, but you can't," Mulder said.
In 2003, under then-City Manager Fritz Behring, Deltona built a $2 million drainage system, consisting of of valves and ditches to channel high waters into Lake Bethel, whose outfall ends in the St. Johns River.
The city, however, must obtain a permit from the St. Johns River Water Management District before it may use a system to relieve floodwaters.
"I live on the back side of Lake McGarity," City Commissioner Paul Treusch said. "Sunday, I went outside and there was not much water. Today, I walked out and you couldn't see any grass."
Treusch said he spent Thursday afternoon at Wes Crile Park, filling sandbags for residents stopping by to get them to shield their homes against rising waters.
"Just like Vietnam," Treusch commented wryly.
Mulder said he does not know how many homes in Deltona are threatened by rising waters, but a tour of the city earlier today showed six to 12 homes with water at the door or only inches away.
Florida Hospital in Orange City was reportedly diverting ambulances to Florida Hospital-DeLand or Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, because of flooding at the emergency-room entrance.
The hospital closed its emergency room only to ambulance traffic; it is still open to the general public.
"If the general public needs to come to the emergency room, they should come to the main entrance of the hospital, rather than the back," said Debbie McNabb, administrative director of marketing and public relations.
UPDATED 6:15 P.M. THURSDAY: Due to significant flooding and power outages, Volusia County Schools has reversed its decision to reopen schools Friday.
Volusia County Schools will be closed Friday, Aug. 22, for the fourth day in a row. Students began the school year with a full day of school Monday, Aug. 18, but have not returned since.
With West Volusia under a flash-flood warning and Tropical Storm Fay still lazily moving over the area, school officials announced about 6 p.m. today that all school activities, events and extended-day programs once again would be canceled tomorrow.
Officials at the DeLand water plant said Thursday afternoon that Fay had dumped 7.5 inches of rain on the city during the previous 24 hours. Several roads were closed. The pond at Earl Brown Park spilled over its banks.
Road are also closed due to flooding in Deltona, DeBary and Orange City. See list below.
UPDATED 5 P.M. THURSDAY: As Tropical Storm Fay moved inland, residents and public officials began to prepare for worsening weather and flooded streets.
Volusia County Emergency Management opened the Citizen Information Center (CIC) at 4 p.m. The number for the public to call is (386) 740-5877.
(Click here for a listing of helpful Web sites and phone numbers)
At 5 p.m., the center of Tropical Storm Fay was located near latitude 29.4 north and longitude 81.4 west, just west of Flagler Beach. Fay is moving west around 5 mph, with sustained winds near 60 mph and higher gusts. Some weakening is forecast over the next 24 hours.
On this track, Fay is forecast to move slowly across the northern Florida Peninsula tonight and early Friday, arriving in the Panhandle by late Friday or early Saturday, leaving 5-10 inches of rain in Central and North Florida.
Tropical storm force winds extended as far as 150 miles, mostly east to the of the storm's center.
One fatality already reported
There is already one confirmed fatality in Volusia County.
Around 2 p.m. today, EVAC Ambulance and Volusia County Beach Patrol responded to calls about two people needing rescue at the beach, off the 300 block of North Atlantic Avenue, near the Oakridge beach approach in Daytona Beach.
The found a woman on the beach. She was not breathing and had no pulse. First responders started cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and advanced life support measures, then took the woman to Halifax Health Medical Center in cardiac arrest. She later died. The second person, a man, was not injured.
More closings took place or were announced this afternoon:
• The City of DeLand closed all offices at 2 p.m.
• The City of Deltona closed all offices at 2 p.m.
• The City of Lake Helen postponed its city commission meeting from tonight to 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 21, at Lake Helen City Hall at 327 S. Lakeview Ave.
• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach closed at 2 p.m. It will not reopen before 10 a.m. Friday. For information, call 1-866-799-3728.
• Florida Technical College in DeLand closed at 5 p.m., with no evening classes tonight. Call (386) 734-3303 for information.
STREET CLOSINGS
As Fay continues to dump rain on West Volusia, watch for low-lying streets and other areas prone to flooding. At 4 p.m., a number of streets were already closed around West Volusia.
IN DEBARY
Some streets, especially in Glen Abbey and in neighborhoods east of U.S. Highway 17-92 and south of Highbanks Road, are closed due to flooding.
• Bougainvillea Drive
• Soft Shadow Court
• Pine Meadow North
• Spring Glen Drive
• Aster Drive
• Dahlia Drive
• Valencia Drive
• Catalina Drive
• Magnolia Drive
IN DELTONA
Deltona residents who experience flooding problems should call the city's 24-hour communications center at (386) 860-7177.
The following areas in Deltona are either closed to all motor vehicle traffic or drivers should avoid them if possible:
• Fernandina Drive at Baton Drive
• Wheeling Avenue at Tivoli Drive
• Elwood Street at North Normandy Boulevard
• Deltona Boulevard at Enterprise Road especially in the area of Justin Square
• Enterprise Road going into Orange City
IN DELAND
• In DeLand near Earl Brown Park, the retention pond is cresting.
• Dexter Drive
IN ORANGE CITY
• French Avenue
IN UNICORPORATED AREAS
• S.R. 44 east of the St Johns River bridge
• Maytown Road, one mile east of S.R. 415.
• Langford Road (off S.R. 415) is completely flooded.
• Orange Drive in Tomoka Farms Estate (off S.R. 415) is completely flooded.
• Palms Drive in in Tomoka Farms Estate (off S.R. 415) is completely flooded.
• S.R. 415 and Eugenia Road
• S.R. 415 (1-1/2 miles south of S.R. 44) - water going over S.R. 415
• Lake Harney Road (near Mims)
• Independence Road (off S.R. 46)
• Hontoon Road and Old New York Avenue
• Lake Shore Road has a tree down in the road and some flooding.
• Boy Scout Camp Road near Lake Ashby
Click here to see slide show of images from Fay
Reader Comments
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We are, still, in VT, until 9/28, this year.
I was very pleased to have this info available! Thanks!
A "snowbird" to DeLand. It will be our 15th winter.
I hope DeLand, and all the surrounding areas effected by Fay find some comfort in knowing that our thoughts and prayers are with you all.
Thank you again.
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