DAVENPORT, Fla. — John McNalis paid $30,000 to put down artificial turf in his yard. It’s an investment into his Davenport property where he plans on living out his retirement.
“I put the turf down to avoid weeds, cutting grass and watering. I was going to be retired,” said McNalis.
McNalis fears all that money he spent to make his life easier will now go down the drain.
“I know they are going to tear it up. Since I border a road, that means cutting the turf on both sides,” he said.
McNalis contacted ABC Action News because crews are digging ditches around Polo Park Boulevard, and he said it is destroying residents' properties.
ABC Action News reached out to Polk County leaders for answers.
The director of Polk County Roads and Drainage Division, Jay Jarvis, said the digging is happening in the public right of way. Jarvis said crews are working to re-establish roadside ditches. He said materials and landscaping have altered the ditches and caused standing water in front of homes.
“The property owners placed materials and landscaping in the public right of way at their own risk,” said Jarvis in an email.
“None of these houses you see down through here, there are never any water issues. It just flows and permeates through the stone and goes around the houses and around the golf course,” Brad Ankrom said.
You can see the markings where the County plans on digging a ditch in front of Ankrom's home, although, he said, he and his neighbors never have standing water.
“If it helps people, I'm all for it. If it gets water off of their property that’s fine. I believe in fixing what’s broken and if it’s not broken don't try and fix it,” Ankrom said.
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.
