The St. Johns River in Orlando, Florida, has been flooding for a long time: A phone interview with A.M. Allers and J.D. Lerner
Allers said that most of the beach’s homes are gone. Some of the homes on the side streets have disappeared, and there’s a hole with water.
Hundreds of homes in central Florida are still submerged in floodwater as the St. Johns – a notoriously lazy river on the east side of the peninsula – lethargically drains the historic rainfall that Hurricane Ian dropped nearly two weeks ago.
“We’re not sure that people understand fully that this river is not going to go down very quickly,” said Kelly. “And so, yes, it’s crested in most places but it’s going to stay near or at that crest for many days and we don’t think people are prepared mentally for that.”
In Seminole County northeast of Disney, over 400 homes are not accessible due to flooding. The city is wedged between three lakes and a bend in the river.
“This area historically floods, and many residents stick it out” in their homes, Lerner told CNN in a phone interview. Some people might have already left because of the flooding.
The St. Johns River, Jacksonville’s Main, and West, as a Tropical Storm, and Potential Interactions with the Florida Peninsula
The St. Johns River begins southeast of Orlando and flows north through dozens of cities on the east side of the Florida Peninsula before it drains into the Atlantic Ocean in Jacksonville.
Scott Kelly, a forecaster at the National Weather Service, said that the river is one of the slowest in the world and that it only drops 30 feet.
Astor is an unincorporated community in Lake County and is on the west side of the river, just south of Lake George. Lerner said there is usually a two-week delay for water to flow from Geneva to Astor; so they should see the water level rise soon.
There are houses and businesses that have been flooded by brown water that is pushing against the river’s banks in DeLand.
“Geneva … DeLand and Astor have all seen record flooding with this event,” Kelly told CNN. This is not something anyone has seen in the last 70 years.
Florida officials are warning residents, including those recently hit by the destructive Hurricane Ian, that a tropical system could bring heavy rain and damaging winds this week.
Kelly said it will freak people out because it will start raining again. There will be more showers, but they will not have a significant impact on the river level.
The system could be a Category 2 or more with a storm surge, damaging winds and heavy rains in parts of the Bahamas and the east coast of Florida on Wednesday and Thursday.
There are watches for Tropical Storm Alex in the US territories of Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands, as well as watches for Tropical Storm Cindy in the northwest Bahamas.
As the system forms, it will possibly churn toward Florida and the Southeast US through early this week, according to CNN Meteorologist Robert Shackelford.
“Conditions may deteriorate as early as Tuesday and persist into Thursday night/Friday morning,” the National Weather Service in Miami said. There are possible impacts to South Florida, including rip currents, dangerous surf/marine conditions, flooding rainfall, and waterspouts/tornadoes.
On Tuesday, which is Election Day, much of the Florida Peninsula can expect breezy to gusty conditions. Chances of rain are expected to increase throughout the day for central and eastern cities such as Miami north to Daytona Beach and inland toward Orlando and Okeechobee.
Tropical Storm Nicole Comes on the West Coast of the Florida Peninsula: Detection, Evacuation, and Planning for Emergency Management in the State of Florida
In the meantime, DeSantis said as the state continues recovering from Ian’s disastrous destruction, officials are also coordinating with local emergency management authorities across the state’s 67 counties.
The goal is to “identify potential resource gaps and to implement plans that will allow the state to respond quickly and efficiently ahead of the potential strengthening” of the storm system, said the release.
Hurricane Ian made landfall as a strong Category 4 storm on the west coast of the Florida peninsula, packing nearly 150 mph winds. The storm killed at least 120 people in Florida, destroyed many homes and leveled small communities. Thousands of people were without water and power.
Despite the exact forecast for the storm is still unknown, forecasters said they are more confident that the storm could become a tropical depression within the next two days.
Homes and buildings are collapsing into the ocean and authorities have issued warnings to evacuate some areas as Tropical Storm Nicole pushes a huge volume of ocean water onshore in southeast Florida.
Video from Volusia County shows homes crumbling as waves erode the coastline. There is a separate video that shows the beach safety office collapsing.
“Right now, ground zero is here,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood told CNN affiliate WESH-TV on Wednesday as Nicole came ashore as a category 1 hurricane.
Effects of High-Tide Flooding on U.S. Sea Level Rise and Other Walls, According to Brian McNoldy, an Associate Professor at the University of Miami
According to data from the national weather service, sea level in the area has risen more than a foot in the past 100 years, and most of that rise has occurred in the past three decades.
“We do gradually put more stress on [sea walls] with sea level rise,” Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, told CNN. More and more of them are completely submerged in salt water, which concrete does not like.
He said it doesn’t take a strong storm to make a difference – you just have high tides or storms to put stress on the walls. These two storms leave their mark, if you do not give places enough time to fix or replenish, each storm leaves its mark.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in 2019 that by 2050, the United States will experience 25 to 75 days of high-tide flooding.