FORT PIERCE, Fla. — In St. Lucie County, neighborhoods of Lakewood Park and White City were slammed with 3 to 6 inches of rainfall Thursday evening, inundating roads and neighborhoods in just a few hours.
Many of you reached out to us concerned your drainage systems weren't doing the job.
"It was intense," said resident Jim Archer. "It just poured, rained really hard. The water was up the road — all over the place and park."
"The swales throughout Lakewood Park are now full and there is no drainage happening because the pumps aren't running," wrote another resident in an email to WPTV. "Perhaps WPTV can look into this issue and get some answers."
We took those concerns to County Commissioner Cathy Townsend, who told us the community's pump was indeed not running until well after rainfall started dumping on the area.
“The county did fail. The county failed at that point, the pump should have been on yesterday morning," said Townsend.
WATCH: WPTV speaks to drivers stuck in floodwaters at California, Savona boulevards
Townsend herself came to check out the flooding in the Fort Pierce neighborhood after residents began reaching out to her and to us.
"I made the call last night, the pump was turned on," said Townsend. "There has been a problem out here for many, many years."
That problem, according to Townsend, is Lakewood Park's infrastructure, or lack thereof.
Townsend says when the community was originally built, there was no agreement between the developer and the water management to drain rising water unless it was a state of emergency.
"At that point, they were only required to take two inches per day," said Townsend.
Since then, Townsend says residents pay $25 per year to be a part of the district, so the water district does drain water every day that it needs to.
However, the only way to do that is through the community's sole water pump on Green Dolphin, which Townsend said can only be turned on when the culvert reaches a certain level and when water management is notified.
The county is working on replacing that pump with a new $4.5 million drainage system, paid for by grants and county funds at no cost to taxpayers.
"So we’re going to make sure that this doesn’t happen again and I do want the residents of Lakewood Park to know that we’re on this," said Townsend. "I'm hopeful that within a year from now we won't even have to have this conversation."
Yet, that's just half the battle.
For one, both Townsend and County Director of Communications Erick Gill said public works crews found multiple culverts that were clogged or even crumbling while swales, designed to drain rainwater runoff, were also blocked.
Gill said crews found at least 21 culverts blocked in White City alone, which are the responsibility of the resident to maintain.
"I was out here [in Lakewood Park] last night with Road & Bridge and they were literally pulling mattresses out of swales where people have just dumped mattresses," said Townsend.
Complicating the issue further was the amount of rainfall dumping on St. Lucie County in such a short amount of time.
"Think about a funnel, when you pour water and you pour too quickly, it's going to spill over," said Gill.
Gill said the county-wide drainage system handles about four inches of water per hour.
The quick torrent of rain soaking already saturated ground created a perfect storm.
"The drainage systems are only designed to handle so much, and we got more capacity than it was designed to handle," said Gill.
"If we continue to see more events like this, is the county looking at potentially expanding or changing the drainage system to meet changing weather patterns?" WPTV's Kate Hussey asked Gill.
"We need to start looking at additional standards and changing the parameters," said Gill.
Gill said the county has a resilience meeting Monday to discuss this very issue, and Townsend said commissioners are constantly talking about ways to improve drainage, particularly as the county sees increasing development.
"There is always room for improvement," said Townsend.
The county also now has a Culvert Assistance Program for residents to come and have their culverts fixed or cleared by the county, which Townsend and Gill encourage residents to utilize.
To take advantage of it, call 772-462-1435 or email waterquality@stlucieco.org.
