SOUTH TAMPA, Fla — David Adams has spent a decade trying to get Tampa City officials to fix the flooding problem in his neighborhood.
“Every time the answer is the same. We need a large, high-capacity pipe to move the water out of this area because it’s a divot. And it’s a low point and all of the water comes to it,” Adams said.
See full report from Erik Waxler
David showed me a picture of his wife putting down sandbags at their Parkland Estates home.
And he had several other pictures of flooding taken, not during a hurricane, but during a heavy storm.
He can’t even count the number of cars he’s seen stuck.
“I’ve seen everything. I’ve seen police cars drowned out, HART buses, FedEx trucks, fire trucks. Nobody just realizes just how bad it is,” Adams said.
David and many others in South Tampa have banded together to push the city for a long-term fix.
James Adair has been focusing on finding where the storm drains lead near his home.
So far, he’s finding overgrown brush.
“This is a real simple case of we aren’t doing well with what we already have. What we already have is not great. But when you really dive into things you start saying are you kidding me? We could fix this very, very low cost,” said Adair.
Tampa officials say the South Howard Water Improvement project will replace existing water mains and increase the system’s capacity.
In the meantime, Interim Mobility Director Brandon Campbell says they have stormwater crews out six days a week working on maintaining the system, and they’ve also added additional contractors to catch up on the backlog.
But he says there’s only so much they can do.
“There are, unfortunately, instances where the system gets overwhelmed. Whether that’s something like Hurricane Milton. But if it rains hard enough for long enough, the system only has so much capacity,” said Campbell.
Campbell said the city has removed 600 tons of debris since the hurricanes.
The South Howard Water Improvement project is expected to begin next summer and will take several years to complete.
Pasco County woman trying to rebuild mobile home after hurricanes
"I cried, of course, because I've worked very hard getting it nice, which has been difficult for me since I lost my husband and being alone,” Kelly Welty said.
Welty's mobile home lost its roof during Hurricane Milton. She said it was the only one in the Buena Vista community to get totaled by a tornado.
