Residents just north of Pensacola are frustrated with drainage problems that have flooded their homes, and they brought their concerns to a town hall Monday night.
Michelle Head’s home on Lyric Lane took nearly two feet of water. “Every time it rains, we go out and look at the ditch to see if it’s going to flood,” she said.
The ditch runs from a retention pond on Johnson Avenue out into Escambia Bay, but many homes along it flood during a hurricane or tropical storm. Head and her neighbors have now lost belongings and several cars twice in six years.
The group joined Commissioner Robert Bender at the town hall. Engineers said they are working to secure money from the Department of Agriculture to widen parts of the ditch, which in some areas is only seven feet wide.
Head left the meeting unconvinced. “I don’t feel any better,” she said. “I don’t feel a sense of security. I don’t feel like anything’s going to get done because promises have already been made and haven’t been kept.”