OLDSMAR, Fla. — While many people continue to pick up the pieces of their lives after Helene, parts of the Tampa Bay area saw more flooding from heavy rainfall Thursday night.
“I had a guy here, he stopped earlier, he was like dude I’ve been here 30 years. I’ve never seen this place flood like this,” said Mark Anderson, the owner of Liquid Lenny’s Customs shop.
As of Friday morning, a pond of water still sat outside Anderson’s business off Douglas Road East in Oldsmar.
He spent the day cleaning up a mess and vacuuming out his car that had about five inches of water in it, all caused by heavy rain Thursday night.
“At about 4:00pm, it started raining, and by 7:00pm, we had two feet of water in the parking lot and five inches through all the buildings here,” said Anderson.
Just down street, several businesses were in the same boat, including for Paul Gullo, the manager at Vibratory Tooling and Repair. ABC Action News caught up with him as he mopped up inside his business, saying they got a foot of water inside.
Both businesses we heard from said they didn’t flood after Hurricane Helene.
“It’s usually about three feet lower than that, and for some reason, it hasn’t been draining. I don’t know why,” said Gullo. “And if it rains again, it’s going to overflow. I know it’s going to overflow, and it’s just going to go right in the shop, and we’re going to be doing this whole thing all over again.”
ABC Action News reached out to the city of Oldsmar about the flooding issue and received the following statement:
“The City of Oldsmar has experienced unprecedented weather events in recent months, including heavy rainfall and a major hurricane. Yesterday’s flash flood brought an additional 5 inches of rain within just two hours," said Felicia Donnelly, Oldsmar's City Manager. "These historic weather events have exceeded the drainage system's design capacity in certain areas, resulting in localized flooding. After inspection, the City’s lead drainage engineer found no evidence of blockages in this specific drainage system that would have contributed to this level of flooding. The City will continue to monitor and maintain the City’s existing drainage system.”
