A Wildwood woman said she was trapped in her home for two days last week due to flooding from Tropical Storm Debby.
“This has really changed our lives,” said Mary Wimberly, who lives about a block south of the Home Depot at County Road 466A (Cleveland Avenue) and Powell Road. “I haven’t experienced any flooding since I’ve been in that house.”
She thanked city staff for helping her and asked commissioners Monday to find a solution to the flooding problem.
But commissioners decided the flooding, accompanied by an overflowing retention pond south of Home Depot, is the store’s problem and declined a plea to help drain the pond.
The issue led to a clash between Mayor Ed Wolf and Commissioner Joe Elliott.
Representing Home Depot, Orlando attorney Julie Kendig-Schrader asked the city to help drain some pond water so additional rain won’t cause more flooding.
She said emptying the pond would allow analysis of the soil beneath it to determine the reason it did not drain properly. Trucking out the water would take a month or two to empty it, she added.
A temporary solution would be to move some of the water to Millennium Park, possibly digging a retention pond there.
“I think doing nothing and waiting for the rain is not the answer,” Elliott said. “We need to empower the city manager to come up with a long-term solution. Doing nothing won’t fix this.”
Elliott’s motion to assist Home Depot was defeated 4-1 after Wolf argued against it.
Wolf, who lives close to the area, said working with the store could subject the city to legal liability.
“We’ve got to be careful,” he said. “I just think we put ourselves in a treacherous position.”
He said helping Home Depot would expend taxpayer dollars without any benefit to the rest of the city.
The rapid pace of development along CR 466A creates more impervious surfaces where storm water can’t drain into the ground.
Debby dumped about 3.6 inches of rain on Wildwood, but Wolf recalled when Florida was hit by four hurricanes in 2005 with a lot more rain and no severe flooding occurred.