ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. — Right now, doing laundry means dirtying more clothes for Jamie Riekens and his wife.
The guest house of his Zephyrhills home, where his laundry room is located, has been surrounded by floodwater since Hurricane Debby and the heavy periods of rain that followed.
“It’s shin deep over there, so every time you’ve gotta do laundry, it’s walking through water for six weeks,” he said. “We were thinking, naturally, it’ll just recede on its own.”
However, the floodwater has not receded in his yard or in others, including the yard of Riekens’ neighbor, Susan Tolman.
Her home is surrounded on four sides by water.
“It’s underneath the house. My pool’s been affected. My well,” she said.
Additionally, her guest house, which she rents on AirBNB, still has two inches of water inside it.
“My insurance isn’t going to cover everything,” she worried.
Neighbors on Burrows Road reached out to ABC Action News, because they say their flood problem is manmade. They believe a drainage ditch at the nearby Ramblewood mobile home park is blocked. Stormwater in the ditch, which would normally flow into Zephyr Creek, is overflowing onto the adjacent properties.
“I’ve been on the phone, and just running around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to get somebody to please do something, because this can’t wait. I mean, this is my house,” Tolman said.
However, the waiting game will continue.
According to the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD), the agency has visited the flooded drainage ditch and surrounding area and is still investigating how to proceed.
“We need to determine who has ownership or control of the ditch and if this falls under the District’s jurisdiction,” a spokesperson for SWFWMD wrote in an email to ABC Action News.
Neighbors, for now, are left with no solution in the middle of middle of hurricane season.
“That’s a scary thought,” said Riekens.
According to a representative with Heiler Communities, the parent company of Ramblewood mobile home park, the company is aware of the issue, is investigating it, and is determining if there’s anything it can do to help.
