ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – County, state, and federal officials met Friday morning to discuss possible solutions to flooding issues at Vilano Beach in St. Johns County.
According to St. Johns County officials, an increase in flood-related events has also contributed to more significant storm drainage issues in the North Beach community, where water can rise fast and homes tend to get flooded.
John Jenkins and his wife Linda live in their home near 10th and Myrtle streets. He said he knows all too well about the flooding. If he parked his jeep at the end of his driveway during a bad storm, it could get submerged.
“It would be up midway to the driver’s door, I would say, right now in a bad storm,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins showed News4JAX pictures of the roads and homes being flooded on his street several years ago. Luckily, he said when he and his wife Linda started building 10 years ago, they built their home high enough to avoid flooding.
“I mean kind of let the buyer beware. Unfortunately, you know, but yeah, I think what happened several neighbors that have had flooding several times, and it’s not a pleasant thing,” he said.
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The North Beach in Vilano is in a perfect storm when it comes to bad weather.
With the beach and the intracostal, flooding and standing water are some of their constant problems — covering roads, sidewalks and flooding homes.
“I think and I think the commission has kind of come to the conclusion that probably the best option is a seawall. If you drive, or if you boat along the shore here, you’ll see a lot of seawalls have already been built by individuals. And those are the areas where those homes are not being flooded. And so we want to extend all of that,” Congressman John Rutherford said.
Rutherford, state leaders and St. Johns County commissioners took a boat tour Friday prior to holding a press conference where they talked about possibly building a seawall using FEMA funding.
“You always want to find the most cost-effective way of doing something. But I think that is the most cost-effective way. It’s the most effective and the most cost-effective, I think. But just because of the lay of the land,” Rutherford said.
In the meantime, St. Johns County Commissioner Henry Dean said they raised a boat ramp at the boat club along the intracoastal to help when storms do come in.
“So now it prevents that water from backflow on through storm surge into that neighborhood. So we’re doing what we can with fixes that are available that the county can do,” Dean said.
Rutherford told News4JAX that the building of a seawall could start within the next year or two.