Thunderstorms dropped 3 to 6 inches of rain on the county Thursday, and more is on the way.
By JAMIE JONES and MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published June 20, 2003
[Times photo: Janel Schroeder-Norton]
Agnes Lyle clutches her umbrella while walking thorugh the parking lot at Hudson Square.
He stood in the rain, thinking quietly.
He stared at his friend's Chevrolet, dead on the flooded Hudson Avenue.
Adam Vaughn leaned over, extended his arms.
He trotted barefoot through dirty brown water, pushed the car to the side of the road.
He pulled a half-smoked Newport from behind his left ear, lit it, inhaled.
The 23-year-old looked at the sky.
"I hate the rain," he said.
The rain came steadily on Thursday, in delicate drops, in strong sheets. Three to 6 inches fell over parts of Pasco County as thunderstorms cleared the Gulf of Mexico and traveled east across the North Suncoast.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the county, and roads flooded in Hudson, Holiday, Dade City and Zephyrhills. County officials spent the afternoon monitoring submerged roads.
"Too many to count," said Michele Baker, the county's emergency management director.
The southern part of New Port Richey, particularly the Magnolia Valley area, flooded, as did segments of Old Dixie Highway and Fivay Road in Hudson.
In the early afternoon, Russell Fortner, 24, wiped rain drops from his black goatee as he stood on Hudson Avenue, happy about the rain.
"See that one?" Fortner said, gesturing toward a dying cedar tree. "That's why we need this rain. Everything's been dying."
For years, Fortner said, he could set his watch by the afternoon storms, which seem to arrive with less frequency.
"It's a good sight to see," he said of the rain. "I hope it keeps coming."
It will, forecasters say. Scattered thunderstorms are expected through next week.
Just outside the Zephyrhills city limits, James Meyer stood on his front porch, surveying the slow expansion of Smith/Simons Lake across the street.
Meyer's house, on Ash Street, sits at a safe elevation. But all around him, neighbors' yards have turned into ankle-deep bogs this week from the unrelenting rain and poor drainage.
To Meyer, who grew up on his family's land nearby, the flooding is no surprise.
"There's nothing unusual, really, about the height of the water," said Meyer, 48. "We're having a little more rain than usual."
Meyer said this corner of east Pasco, off Fort King Road north of Silver Oaks Golf Course, was all cattle farms when he was a child. Years ago, the farm owners dug up a lot of the land to provide water for their cattle.
Now, the geographical result is a flood zone.
Up and down the dirt passages of Sunshine Road, Ash Street and Austin Smith Road, algae-covered water inched toward people's front doors. Some driveways were submerged, making access impossible.
A 4-inch hose furiously pumped runover out of Bonnie Lake, also known as Lake Elizabeth, and emptied it into a marshy lot at Ash and Sunshine. At the east end of the lake, several mobile homes appeared in danger of floating away.
Phil Haynie, whose lot is a comfortable distance from the lake, said the water has actually gone down since the weekend's downpours.
One of his neighbors cut off the power to his mobile home and left, Haynie said. His sister, who lives in a small mobile home next door, was packed to go when the water began receding.
"I've never seen it like this," said Haynie, who has lived on Ash Street about 10 months since buying the property from his parents.
But Meyer has seen it plenty of times. He pointed to the water oaks across from his house as evidence that the area is prone to flooding.
"(If) you keep throwing ice cubes in a glass, it's going to overflow," Meyer said. "That's basically what we've got."
- Times staff writer Bridget Hall Grumet contributed to this report.
