HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — It’s been two weeks since Hurricane Milton, and families are still reeling from the impacts of flooding from the storm.
Adrian Aye described October 9th as the worst day of his life.
"Unfortunately, I saw not just my own, but everyone in my neighborhood's homes destroyed,” said Aye. “Their cars, their property, everything was gone in the flash of a night."
He lived at Cinnamon Cove, which isn't in an evacuation zone, and experienced the devastating flooding in the University Area after Hurricane Milton.
“It was like a still lake,” said Aye. “I knew exactly where the manholes were, I knew exactly where the drainage should've happened, but there was nothing happening at all, which just led me to believe that our neighborhood, the city, the county weren't doing their jobs when it came to making sure that we were properly prepared for the storm."
Aye was at a Hillsborough County Commission meeting on Wednesday, where the board discussed having an independent investigation to assess what caused the devastating stormwater flooding along Fowler Avenue in the University Area, the Forest Hills neighborhood, and areas of Plant City.
“I want us to look at what we can do to harden and make resilient these areas in the future,” said Commissioner Pat Kemp. “I don't expect that this will be the last major downpour that we will ever get, so to look at that proactively, one, to harden it, and see what we can do to deal with this amount of water, and as well to give people warning."
Kemp said this is part of the process to look at what went wrong in this aftermath and what we can do to work on it for the future.
"Do we need greater retention? Do we need backup generators? Do we need pumps?” said Kemp. “What can we do to lessen the impact of what occurred to us, particularly in this case with Hurricane Milton, because that's where most of the unexpected flooding was where there weren't evacuation zones."
It’s a welcome effort from neighbors who are still hurting after the storm.
"I have friends that are currently living in their cars, living on the streets because of this, and I need Hillsborough County to do something about it,” said Aye.