JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Severe storms rolling east through the Jacksonville area early Monday evening caused flooding, damage and power outages.
The Weather Authority said the amount of rainfall was widely variable. Some backyards got a whole lot of rain, while many others just had a decent amount.
Parts of town stretching from the Southside to Fort Caroline saw 2 inches of rain.
Minor flooding
Although the rain was needed, people who live in the Fort Caroline area off of University Boulevard had to deal with some minor flooding.
Monday evening's heavy rain not only made driving difficult around the area, it also left sidewalks, front yards and driveways submerged under water. The rain even washed out the edge of one roadway.
Manuel Duluz said he’s lived in Fort Caroline for three years, and had never seen that much rain in such a short amount of time before Monday.
"It was really shocking," Duluz said. "When we came outside, my wife called me and I was, like, 'Wow.' We had like 3 or 4 inches of water inside the garage, and all the water going through there, and we had to put trash cans and sandbags and all kinds of stuff to try to stop it.”
Duluz said he and his wife are now left with the cleanup after the rain penetrated deep into his garage
“I think if this was a hurricane or something, we would had been at a loss," Duluz said. "So we’re really lucky.”
At the intersection of University Boulevard North and Meek Drive, floodwaters washed away the edge of the road.
Neighbors said the area has flooded before, but nothing like Monday -- especially in front of homes.
“That part’s never been flooded up to our house," said Dennis Khamphanthirath, a Fort Caroline resident. "They came in and dug out some stuff like a year or two ago and it made it actually worse.”
Residents believe the flooding was a combination of clogged storm drains and a lot of rain in a short amount of time.
Damage
In the Panama Park area of Jacksonville, a gas station awning collapsed onto a car about 5:30 p.m. at North Main Street and Tallulah Avenue.
No injuries were reported.
Power outages
As of 9 p.m., JEA reported seven active electric outages affecting 336 customers.
The main outage was in Tallyrand off East 21st Street near Phoenix Avenue, where 246 customers were without power due to a downed or damaged wire.
At the peak of the outages, there were 2,439 JEA customers without power -- mainly in the areas of Sunbeam, Mandarin, San Jose and Tallyrand.