HOLIDAY, Fla. — A Pasco County resident said a stormwater drain repair project near her home has been delayed for months.
Caryn Cimapoli said county contractors left the job unfinished, leading to huge holes forming in the yard of her rental home, including one that swallowed her electrical transformer last weekend.
“This is a dangerous situation,” Ciampoli said.
She said she contacted Pasco County for five years to complain about drainage problems in the street in front of her home.
“At least three or four weeks it’s been sitting there”
Ciampoli said crews arrived earlier this summer to repair a broken stormwater drainage line going from the road to a lake behind her home.
“Now they’ve started something, and they haven’t finished,” Ciampoli said.
She said crews have only worked a few days at a time, while giant holes have become flooded with recent rains, causing dirt to collapse into large open holes.
Heavy equipment sits dormant in Cimpoli’s front and back yards.
“At least three or four weeks it’s been sitting there,” she said, pointing to a front-end loader sitting in a hole near the lake. “Nobody’s doing anything.”
Last weekend, stormwater caused the earth under a transformer to collapse.
“The electric company had to come out. They had to pick it out because the old one fell in when it collapsed and shorted out, and nobody had electricity,” Ciampoli said.
She said power in the neighborhood was out for about eight hours while the transformer was replaced.
Ciampoli shot a video of smoke coming from the shorted-out transformer.
A new transformer is suspended over the hole by large boards, surrounded by an orange mesh safety fence.
“This is a dangerous situation”
In the backyard, Ciampoli put up a makeshift wooden fence and concrete stepping stones to keep her two young special needs children from falling into a growing hole.
She has also reinforced a gate sinking into the saturated ground near a lake.
“That’s all sunk and then pulled away from here,” she said. “We have alligators. I'm sure they’d enjoy a child. If they enjoy a dog, they’d enjoy a child.”
Ciampoli said she repeatedly contacted the county but didn’t get an answer about when the project would be completed.
“I needed to call you. I need your help. Somebody big is sitting on their (expletive) not doing nothing,” she said.
Pasco County Responds
We contacted the county.
A spokesperson issued the following statement in an email:
“The pipe is in poor condition and had some additional collapsing during recent heavy rains, which has made the job more challenging for the contractor. Pasco County is in constant communication with the contractor and is making every effort to minimize any additional damage to the area. The work is on schedule to be completed by the end of next week.”
Ciampoli said those repairs can’t happen soon enough.
“I’m just frustrated. I just want my yard put back the way it was. I want my children to run free in my yard,” she said.
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