LAKELAND, Fla. — “Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”
That quote, attributed to the writer National Hawthorne, sums up what Nicole Aldahonda-Ramirez is feeling six months after Hurricane Milton flooded her Lakeland home.
Since then, time has flown.
“It seems like it’s been ten years,” she said.
But Milton’s shadows are still everywhere: throughout her Lakeland neighborhood on Little Lake Bonny, inside and outside her home, and in the back of her mind constantly.
“You know, I’m in therapy for the PTSD, the trauma, everything that’s gone on,” Aldahonda-Ramirez said.
Her home, located directly on the lake, had never flooded before until Milton.
It flooded so badly that a boat collided with her home, and she had to escape through the front window with her dog.
“I can’t even believe I went in and through the water,” she said. “I would never go in that water, and the fact that I actually was in it walking with alligators, who knows where they were.”
Six months later, she’s back in the home but still rebuilding it bit by bit.
It’s exhausting. It’s expensive. It can feel impossible.
“It has a different meaning living here now,” she said while holding back tears. “It’s not, it’s not what I thought it was going to be.”
The worst part is the uncertainty.
“It’s not if I’m going to flood,” she said. “It’s when.”
She feels the City of Lakeland can and should do more to lower the lake level and prevent future floods on Lake Bonny.
The city has taken some action.
In March, the city announced a 90-day emergency agreement with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which controls lake levels.
Before the agreement, the city could only pump water from Lake Bonny into nearby Lake Parker when Bonny reached a 10-year flood stage.
The new agreement will allow the city to use the emergency pump sooner when Lake Bonny’s flood level is roughly halfway between a normal lake level and the 10-year flood stage.
The city recently drained the culvert that runs between Lake Bonny and Lake Parker and discovered no obstructions.
Earlier this year, the City of Lakeland also commissioned a study of the Lake Bonny flooding to identify causes and possible long-term solutions. According to the study’s timeline, it should be nearing completion in the coming weeks.
However, Aldahonda-Ramirez and others want more answers, solutions, and proof that they matter to the city.
“It’s extremely hard, but you have to keep going,” she said.
Right now, she’s collecting signatures on a petition that asks the city for an “independent third-party review” of the flooding along Lake Bonny.
She plans to deliver the signatures to commissioners at an upcoming meeting.
Advocating for her community while rebuilding her home has become a full-time job for Aldahonda-Ramirez.
“It’s insane the process,” she said. “You would never think that all of this is involved in it after the fact and that nobody is there to give you help or answers.”
Six months have passed, but Milton still hangs like a cloud over her home and others.
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