Flooding victims take frustrations to Pasco County Commission

DADE CITY, Fla. — Michael Barnes's family history goes back about 80 years on this land in Dade City.

So the idea of moving is tough for him to grasp.

“It would make me sick to do it. I really don’t want to leave. If it meant keeping other people from flooding I’d do it,” said Barnes.

The Barnes built their home in 2002 and then fought to keep the neighboring land from turning into a large subdivision built up higher than their property.

Heritage Hills now has more than 300 homes.

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“When they got ready to annex this property 20 years ago, I’m on record, I’m in the newspaper telling them you are going to flood out all my neighbors that don’t have flood insurance,” said Barnes.

This area has flooded over the years, but after Hurricane Milton, it was worse than ever before.

And the road to where Michael and Kimberly live still isn’t passable.

Contractors can’t get through to do repairs on their home.

And they’ve been forced to live with friends in a different home from their children.

“Now we are stuck. We have all this land in front of us. This all used to be trees and flatland. Now we have houses that are looking down on us,” said Kimberly.

Kimberly is one of several people who live in East Pasco County who spoke of their frustrations at Tuesday’s commission meeting.

Commissioner Jack Mariano told the group to be patient.

“We are all working to solve these issues not only for the short term, which is critical because we don’t want to see an exacerbation of the problem we had with the storms coming in, but for the long term as well,” Mariano said.

At the Barnes’ homes, there are questions over responsibility between the county, the city, and Swiftmud.

Kimberly doesn’t even know who should address problems with this pop-off drain on an easement she says spills water onto their land like a river.

She says they should not feel forced out of their home because of bad decisions made by others.

“The fear of this happening again, like in the middle of the night being trapped and losing our vehicles, I don’t know if I can emotionally do that again,” said Kimberly.