Flooding moves east, hundreds are affected
LEE (AP) – When Carl Lee last saw his house built on stilts, the Withlacoochee River had crept within six inches of the floor while lumber and stray Christmas ornaments were bobbing in the floodwaters.
“Kinda spooky, especially when you look out there and everything you worked for and planned on, and everything is gone,” Lee said Thursday. “I lost my truck, my car.”
Lee, 68, said the river still hadn’t crested when a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission boat rescued him and his three dogs a day earlier.
He is among hundreds forced from their homes by river flooding across the top of Florida over the past two weeks. The focus Thursday moved from the Panhandle, where floodwaters were receding, to rivers that were still rising in rural areas farther east including Lee, a small town in Madison County about 65 miles east of Tallahassee.
Authorities were still searching for J.D. Waters, 71, a Madison County man who was swept away while trying to walk through Withlacoochee floodwaters near his home Sunday, said emergency management spokeswoman Joy Tsubooka. Flooding earlier was blamed for two deaths, both motorists, in Okaloosa County.
Initial reports so far show the rising waters have destroyed or caused major damage to nearly 200 homes and minor damage to more than 500 in Florida since the flooding began. The toll is expected to increase because officials haven’t been able to reach some flooded areas and rivers are still rising in others.
“We’ve had river flooding before, but we’ve never had anything like this,” said Jim Stanley, emergency management director for Madison County.
Stanley estimated 100 Madison County homes have been affected by floodwaters from the Withlacoochee and Suwannee rivers, but no official assessment yet has been made there. The Withlacoochee crested at a record 89 feet near the Florida-Georgia state line, topping the old record set in 1948 by four feet.
Lee said it’s just a coincidence he decided to settle down in the town that shares his name when he retired as a juvenile justice correctional officer. He said water management officials had assured him he would be safe in a home perched 15 feet above the ground and about 50 or 60 feet from the river’s edge.
“They were wrong,” Lee said.
His television wouldn’t get a picture when he got up Wednesday morning – which might have served as a clue that the river had already submerged the satellite dish mounted below floor level. But he paid no heed, because passing clouds and bad weather often knock out the signal.
Not feeling well, he played with the dogs and never looked out the window until that afternoon when he got a call from the sheriff’s office asking how to find his house.
“I asked them why, and they says ‘Because you’re getting ready to get swamped,” Lee said.
Authorities sent a helicopter that spotted him waving a white towel from his balcony. Then came the rescue boat. Lee said he has flood insurance but expects the worst, based on a report from a neighbor who lives on higher ground.
“I had my red Pontiac outside the gate, and he says just a couple inches of the Pontiac were showing,” Lee said. “I know it’s going to be one heck of a mess.”
Most damage recorded so far has been in the Panhandle. The assessments don’t yet include Madison County and other areas now being affected in the sparsely populated region east of Tallahassee where the Suwannee, Withlacoochee and Santa Fe rivers remain on the rise.