Less than two months after Hurricane Milton brought more rain, and more than two years after hurricanes Ian and Nicole dumped their loads of water on their homes and roads, Deltonans with flooding are trying to figure out how to alleviate their plight.

Indeed, many people who never imagined that they would live on waterfront property are now doing that — to their chagrin and dismay.

A prominent business owner and longtime homeowner believes he has a solution to a problem that seems to defy efforts to ease it and avert water woes in the future. Mel Himes, who owns an insurance agency in Deltona, has thought about the flooding of his property and that of his neighbors, and he is floating — no pun intended — a plan for reducing the levels of damaging waters.

“The first one is to dredge. If they would dredge Lake Theresa and Lake DuPont, it would improve the quality of the water. If they would dredge down about 6 inches, that would accommodate the water,” Himes said, as he gave a tour of his neighborhood in central Deltona.

Dredging the bottom of the lakes, he added, would remove some of the sediment, as well as deepening the floor of the lake. Thus, a deeper lake, the reasoning goes, would enable it to hold back more water that would otherwise spread out onto land and into homes.

City Manager Dale Dougherty, however, said he doubts dredging the lakes would solve the problems of spreading and rising waters. Once dredged, the lake’s bottom would probably fill in the hole or depression created by removing the dirt.

“We’re going to be meeting with the St. Johns River Water Management District,” he told The Beacon. “I’m open to any ideas.”

Besides dredging, Himes wants the Water Management District to allow Deltona to use its “big ditch” system to move high waters out of the north central and central parts of the city. That passive system of ditches, he says, moves water from the Lake Theresa Basin southward to Lake Bethel and, from there, into Lake Monroe. The district has ordered the city to keep the system’s gates closed. That, he added, causes water to back up and, when the volume becomes too great, the release of the water may cause flooding downstream.

“If they would keep it open, you would have a steady flow,” Himes said.

The $2 million ditch system was built in 2003 when then-City Manager Fritz Behring sought to relieve flooding in Deltona. 

More suggestions for drying out Deltona 

Himes has some other ideas. Another part of the long-term solution, Himes said, is to make more places for excess water to fill.

“The other thing is to build a borrow pit,” Himes said.

The dirt from the borrow pit could be used to build berms and fend off flooding in low-lying or poorly draining areas.

“They could control stormwater,” he continued. “Make an artificial lake. They could use it for recharge or whatever.”

Although he owns a total of 30 acres along Wiggley Farms Road and on the shores of Lake DuPont, the size of his tract did not prevent water from the lake from coming up to his barn after Ian or following Milton. The super-wet conditions and the lake overflow have reduced his homesite, Himes pointed out.

“My 7 1/2 acres is maybe about 4,” he said. “We cannot use our property. We’re paying taxes on land that is underwater.”

Trying to cope with adverse conditions

Despite some recent rainless days, the situation is not improving. In fact, the pollution of the blended water of the rain and the lake may pose a threat to public health, and it may be worsening.

“There was toilet paper floating,” Himes said, referring to the still-high water by his barn.

The disturbing discovery came, he noted, “within the past few days.”

The source of the dirty water is not known, Himes said, but he wondered if neighbors elsewhere along Lake DuPont are using other containers and then discharging their waste into the lake water or on soggy land.

The flooding brought other unwanted trouble.

“I killed a water moccasin,” Himes said. “During Ian, we had alligators.”

Himes’ neighbor, Dr. Kenneth J. Adcook, M.D. (retired), related his encounters with wildlife on the lakefront patio of his home.

“A couple of gators would lie there,” he said, pointing out the patio is adjacent to his living room.

The presence of the reptiles on his porch was, in a way, a sign of receding waters, which had come over his windowsills and into the home.

“It’s just filthy water,” Adcook said, noting he, Himes and others battling flooding must rely on evaporation to lower the water. “It takes five days to go down an inch.”

That is the best of conditions, meaning a day of sun or clouds, but no rain. Himes also said city officials told him water evaporates at a rate of 1/5 of an inch per dry day.

Adcook wonders why the state has not intervened to provide pumping of floodwaters away from the affected areas, especially inasmuch as Gov. Ron DeSantis visited storm-damaged properties and their owners in Daytona Beach following Milton.

“DeSantis never came over here. He could issue an emergency order. He could do the same thing here,” Adcook said.

The flooding from Ian was responsible for damaging Himes’ barn. His insurance company helped restore the barn.

“I’ve got flood issues. I filed a claim,” he said. “They came out and remodeled inside. They paid me 40-grand.”

Not least, for most people, one of the more dreaded aspects of a hurricane is surviving without electric power. After Hurricane Milton, Himes and his neighbors were left without conventional service “for seven to 10 days,” he said, but all was not lost.

“I have a couple of portable generators,” he said.

Had it not been for his generators, the wait for a restoration of service would probably have been longer. 

“We’re the last people that they [electric utilities] try to serve. We’re only about 16 homes,” he added.

Are there other options for easing flooding?

In what may seem like an echo of some Volusia County officials, Dougherty said the city may have to buy flood-prone properties and use them as retention basins. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, he went on to say, will help localities prevent future flooding disasters by transforming their low-lying neighborhoods and sections into stormwater ponds.

“FEMA puts up 75 percent [of the cost], and the city puts up 25 percent,” he went on to say.

Deltona, like other cities in Florida, has the makings for flooding difficulties, he added.

“It is lakes and hurricanes and homes on the lakes. That does not mix well,” Dougherty said. “There’s always going to be people that want to live on the lakes. We’ve got so many lakes and so many homes,” he noted.

In places where repetitive flooding has damaged homes, Dougherty said the owners would probably be willing to sell and move, rather than prompting the city to resort to eminent domain. Eminent domain is the taking of property, with the approval of a court, for a public purpose and the compensation of the private owners at a price deemed fair to both sides and set by the court.

Meanwhile, in Deltona, officials and flood victims in the older core area of the city are awaiting the completion of the Lake Theresa Basin study by the Ardurra Group, a Miami-based consulting engineering firm. The city is paying Ardurra $1.2 million to determine the extent of Deltona’s flooding problem and to formulate proposals for preventing future flooding. Ardurra’s study is supposed to be completed in 2025.

Rather than wait for the end of the study or for more adverse weather events, Himes says the St. Johns River Water Management District should allow Deltona to keep its passive drainage system open. 

If the district will not give Deltona permission to use the drainage system, Himes said the city, along with the cities of Lake Helen and DeLand, as well as Volusia County, should petition Gov. DeSantis to override the district. The Lake Theresa Basin, in fact, includes Lake Helen and parts of DeLand and the county’s unincorporated area.

“If the cities would get together and ask the governor, he may issue an emergency order,” Himes said.

Deltona has a population of nearly 100,000, and that is a large area affected by the soggy conditions, he noted. In fact, he pointed out, all property owners in the city are being affected.

“Why are our stormwater fees going up? ‘I’ve never had a problem,’ but 50,000 other people do,” he said.

Meanwhile, the recent sunny days have helped to dry out Himes’ property and those of his neighbors. 

As the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season closes, Himes offers some hard-earned wisdom to others who have been fortunate not to endure high water and the problems that come with it.

“How many of you have experienced it? If you haven’t experienced it, you don’t understand,” he concluded.