PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Residents in a St. Pete neighborhood said flooding near their homes has gotten worse over the years, and now they've reached a breaking point.
After multiple attempts to get help from the City of St. Pete, residents contacted us.
Watch full report from Casey Albritton
Missy Lebrun loves her home near 58th Street North in St. Pete, but there's only one issue.
"The rainfall in this area and the flooding in this area has gotten significantly worse in the last 20 years," said Lebrun.
She said she really noticed the flooding last year, right before Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
"People were driving through my yard to try to get out of the water," said Lebrun.
Neighbors said flood waters cover the streets and move into driveways after only a small rainfall now.
"I'm worried…I'm really worried," said Lebrun.
"The road does flood over with maybe a half an inch or an inch with a steady rain," said Sandy Wagner, another neighbor.
Lebrun said the big issue is a ditch near her home.
"You can see all this brush and greenery growing up in between where it goes through or where the water would flow," she said.
Residents in the neighborhood say the ditch is so clogged that no water is draining.
"There's even a pine tree that's like 20 feet tall in there, in the ditch that's been growing," said Lebrun.
Residents said crews used to come out fairly often to clean out the ditch but they haven't come out recently and it's causing issues in the area.
"I haven't seen them do any work to those ditches in i don't know how many years," said Lebrun.
"They used to come with backhoes, big, and scoop it out to where there was no grass just dirt. They really went down and emptied it out. That helped a lot," said Wagner.
Lebrun said she contacted the city for help last year and has reached out other times, with no progress.
ABC Action News contacted the city to see if anything is being planned to clean out the ditch, and we are waiting to hear back.
In the meantime, Lebrun said she's doing all she can to stay safe this hurricane season.
"I didn't realize the City of St. Pete gave out sand bags year round, so I'm going to start collecting them and doing what I can to protect my property," said Lebrun.
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