Flooded Lake Bonny residents seek more relief as city continues pumping water

LAKELAND, Fla. — People that live near Lake Bonny are still looking for relief from flooding, four weeks following Hurricane Milton.

Life hasn’t been the same for Nicole Ramirez and her husband Ricky since Hurricane Milton roared through their Lakeland neighborhood.

“We only left with enough stuff on our backs to get us through the next day. We never thought it would be three and a half weeks later. It’s almost a month. My house is full of mud,” Ramirez said.

The couple can no longer live in their home since Lake Bonny left it underwater for weeks. Their dog has passed away, and Ricky is dealing with kidney failure, making an already stressful situation even harder.

“He has no wheelchair, he has no scooter, no oxygen machine or hospital bed because all of that is under water and molded because they delayed whatever action they planned on doing,” Ramirez said.

Lakeland city leaders said they had been pumping water out of Lake Bonny since Aug. 5.

On Oct. 23, the city teamed up with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and Polk County to place additional pumps and 6,000 feet of piping to speed up water removal. Four pumps have removed 19,500 gallons of water from Lake Bonny so far.

“A total removal of over 80 million gallons is needed to lower the lake by one foot,” said Shawn Sherrouse, Lakeland City Manager.

Ramirez and her neighbors said action should have been taken sooner. Dozens of them showed up at city hall pleading for help.

“I feel like we’ve been abandoned. The city just says, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' I'm sorry is not going to make my home whole again,” said Pamela Smith.

City leaders said pumping will continue until Lake Bonny water levels are normal.

“Three aspects that need to be dealt with immediately: how are we going to continue to get the water off of everyone’s property, what are we going to do for the residents who thought they were protected by the City of Lakeland with the pump, third, what are we going to do to prevent this from happening again?” said Smith.