Charlotte County residents believe flooding is not a priority to city and county leaders

The people dealing with flooding in Punta Gorda are telling us they want leaders to take their issues seriously.

In unincorporated Charlotte County, as of Monday, 15 homes had water inside. Riverside Drive and Darst Park are areas WINK News saw were flooded.

In Punta Gorda, two drivers were rescued as their cars got stuck in flood water.

WINK News has been monitoring the flooding the past three days, caused by Debby, and saw firsthand how much water makes it into residential neighborhoods and businesses.

Now, neighbors are turning to WINK, wanting answers to why they have to deal with this so often. Punta Gorda neighbors are fearful.

“We lost the car right here in the driveway from Idalia,” Debbie Wilson-Clay, who lives right off of W. Marion Ave.

Business owner Mark Draper had to pay $35,000 for Idalia water damages. His business is off of E. Olympia Ave.

Both have been in the area for years and both say they are exhausted of the flooding and the non-working storm drains.

“You cannot have the level of widespread flooding that occurs from here all the way through the residential historic district of Punta Gorda, unless there is a problem, unless there is something more significant than just one street is higher than the other street. It occurs all over,” Draper said.

Wilson-Clay says the city seems to not care. “They have no, they really don’t even have a plan to look at and a way to stop the flooding or a way to mitigate the flooding. They don’t care.”

She’s not the only one who thinks that. Mike Polk, who lives off of Berry Street said leaders need to step it up.

“I’ve spoken in front of the city council several times and we’ve met with more than one engineer and both the ones that we talked to said it’s fixable, it just needs to be a priority,” Polk said.

Everyone WINK News spoke to says the storm drains are the issue. They are supposed to take in water instead of spilling out water. Neighbors say the drains take in water from the Peace River, then spill it out into the neighborhood streets.

“There’s obviously a problem with the storm sewer system. There needs to be some type of valve that would allow the water to the stormwater to run off, but prevent the tidal water from coming back in,” Draper said.

“It’s gotten better for an afternoon rainstorm, but on the catastrophic storms, they’re not blocking that off. So the storm surge is coming through those enormous water pipes and coming right up into our homes and into our neighborhood,” Wilson-Clay said.

“At this point, we shouldn’t have this type of flooding. This is something that is fixable. It’s the storm drain system,” Polk said.

Wilson-Clay said she has considered moving because of it.

“We’re getting older. When you’re young, it’s easy to clean up stuff. It’s easy to, kind of bounce back, but, at this point, we’re getting older. It’s been a great place to live, but I don’t know how much more, if they’re not going to do anything about the flooding, I can handle it,” Wilson-Clay said.

Neighbors also say some streets are higher than others so those homes in a “bowl” see the worst of the worst, all of the time.

WINK News will be meeting with city and county leaders later this week to discuss these issues.