- April 24, 2024
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Some of the images from the heavy rains in Palm Coast this weekend were playful. There were children splashing in the streets, like the photo above, of Joanna Melamed and her son, Evan Pierre. Other residents pulled out their kayaks and canoes to make an unusual memory of paddling above the pavement. At least one person was photographed actually swimming down the middle of the street.
But for others, the rising water was no laughing matter.
Water in the kitchen
For example, April Douglas, a young mother who was home alone with her 6-year-old son on Palmyra Lane. At about 4 p.m. Friday, she noticed liquid on the kitchen floor and wiped it up, thinking it had probably come from her son spilling some water. Then, later that night, she went to get herself a glass of water from the kitchen and stepped in a puddle. She flipped on the light and stared at the water that had stretched from her pantry to her refrigerator. The house had been breached.
Stalled
For example, Laura Rahn, who, on her way home from work in St. Augustine, talked to her boyfriend on the phone. He warned her to be careful because the streets were flooded. She drove to her home on Westlee Lane, and, sure enough, the water was so deep it reached the top of her tires. As she continued on, she hit a dip in the road where the water was apparently even deeper, and the car stalled. People came out of their garages and snapped photos of her, stranded in the middle of the road.
Front and back yards
For example, Rusty Rollings, a woman who has been out of work for some time and calls this “one of the most depressed place areas I’ve ever lived in.” She has been contemplating selling her home and moving back to Georgia. Like her neighbors, she also watched the rain soak her lawn, fill up her ditch, and then, finally, spill out of the ditch.
“I watched the water rushing down the street and into the easement in my yard, and the easement couldn’t handle it, so it went up to the house,” she said.
The backyard was no better. Her lawn was covered, and then it spilled onto the porch and crept up to a half inch deep on her back door.
“I was just praying that it would stop at some point in time,” she recalled. “That’s all I could do.”
‘There is a lot of water’
On Friday night, April Douglas soaked up water with towels, but the water wouldn’t stop. Where was it coming from? Certainly not the front door. Then she realized the water was coming from the corners of the kitchen itself.
She wrung out the towels and soaked up more water. She put them in the dryer, rotating between seven or eight towels in all.
Her son was frightened by the lightning and the power going on and off. He kept asking, “Mommy, are we going to be OK? There is a lot of water.”
He didn’t want to go to bed, so he picked out the highest spot on the couch and stayed there. He was worried the water would keep rising.
“I was very scared that the towels were not going to do it,” Douglas recalled, “and that me and my son were going to be stuck there.”
The house is owned by Douglas’ mother, who was out of town, so her backup plan was to have a friend come and pick them up. But the road was flooded, she said, so she was worried that no one would be able to come and pick them up.
The puddle reached under the washer and dryer, so she pulled them out to avoid causing a spark.
Finally, after working through the night, Douglas was confident she and her son would be safe. But it was an unforgettable night.
“I do believe that the rain will make me very uneasy in the future,” she said. “We will have to take it a day at a time.”
Totaled
Laurie Rahn was stuck. The view through her windshield was surreal: water like a river down the road, pocked with rain that continued to fall. The front of her car was submerged in the water. And then, the water began to creep through cracks and seams around the door. It eventually flooded to the level of the radio in her dashboard, she said.
Still wearing her scrubs from work, she pushed the car door open and stepped out, waist deep.
“It wasn’t the greatest idea of what I had in mind after a long day of work,” she said.
One memory that will stick with her is the frogs — big frogs — that swam against her legs. Fortunately, she said, she didn’t see anything else. According to posts on the Palm Coast Observer Facebook page, some people saw water moccasins in the water.
Her boyfriend came to help, and they were able to push it home and then have it towed to a mechanic, but the car is a total loss, she said.
‘Still three inches deep’
Rusty Rollings had seen standing water in her back porch before, from wind and rain, but never this much water. Still, she attempted to use the same solution, which was her Shop-Vac.
“I vacuumed 82 gallons off the back porch,” she said. “I know because I counted how many times I had to unload it.”
There was really nothing she could do about the front yard, though. The water stretched from her neigbhbor’s yard across the street all the way up to her driveway. And then it rose more, until it touched the sidewalk, almost the same elevation as front door. The view of her front yard is all water, a light post stranded in the lake.
“I’m thinking, ‘This is not good,’” she said. “What am I going to do if it comes in?”
All she could do was to wait. Same with her dogs, a black Labrador and a Belgian malanois, neither of whom like the water. “My dogs can’t find a dry spot to go potty,” she said. “They kind of tip-toe.”
With all the waiting, and no way to leave her house because of the flooded roads, Rollings had a chance to think a lot about the drainage, or lack thereof, on her property.
She said city crews worked on the ditch and easement near her home, but it seems that the standing water has only gotten worse.
“The mosquitoes have always been terrible out here,” she said later. “I’ve had standing water pretty much all summer long. … My lawn is always mushy, constantly. ... It’s hard for me to get out there and play ball with my dogs because of all the mosquitoes. They’re ferocious.”
As of Monday afternoon, although the rain had slowed down by then, there was no sign of a dry patch for her dogs. “It’s still three inches deep,” she said.
