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Flooding from Hurricane Milton traps East Orlando neighborhood

The flood is surround homes off Buck Road and Riverdale Road in East Orlando.
Luis-Alfredo Garcia
/
Central Florida Public Media
The flood is surround homes off Buck Road and Riverdale Road in East Orlando.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, one neighborhood off the corner of Riverdale Road and Buck Road in East Orlando has been trapped by flood waters.

The road, from which neighborhood cars normally pull in and out, is about a mile and a half north of East Colonial Drive. On Thursday afternoon, it resembled a lake, and sticking just above the water were the tops of mailboxes, as if they were floating like lily pads.

The mailboxes belong to the homes that were surrounded by at least three to four feet of water. Earlier Thursday morning, Orange County Fire Rescue and Orange County Sheriff’s Office first responders were on scene getting people out of the homes.

Two sheriff's deputies in SUVs were blocking off the entrance to the dead-end road to keep vehicles from turning in and getting stuck in the water. Longtime neighbors said it’s all a familiar scene.

Arlene Morris said she’s lived in this area her entire life and that she knows the people who live in the low-lying area.

"It does it every year from the hurricanes,” Morris said. “This always happens, and last year, they all flooded out here, and they had boats coming out and stuff. The water goes into [my neighbor’s] house and a lot of them down there, and they just stay there and rebuild and try to get organized.”

Another neighbor passed by walking her dog. Kathy McBride said she’s lived here since the 80s and thinks fixing the often-flooding road is not high on the priority list for local governments.

“It's low, and they're right by the river, so that's obviously a problem, but I'm sure it has to do with just the priority list, with tax dollars. They have certain amounts of money that they allocate to certain projects, and so because the money's not unlimited, I'm sure that's a major factor,” McBride said.

Mailbox tops stick out of the water on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, resembling floating lily pads.
Lillian Hernández Caraballo
Mailbox tops stick out of the water on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, resembling floating lily pads.

Lillian Hernández Caraballo is a Report for America corps member.

Lillian (Lilly) Hernández Caraballo is a bilingual, multimedia journalist covering housing and homelessness for Central Florida Public Media, as a Report for America corps member.
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