That's how residents of South Tampa describe their flood-prone community.
By JANET ZINK
Published September 3, 2004
When it rains, it pours in South Tampa.
And the people who live and work in the city's worst flooding areas can tell you all about it. More than a week after a storm dropped 4 inches of rain, they are still talking about it.
Their advice for navigating the streets when the waters rise?
Well, if you don't have one already, get an SUV.
You can try weaving through back streets, but there's no guarantee they'll be any better than the main drags.
You can stay put until the water subsides.
Or you can drive the same way porcupines play leapfrog - very carefully.
"People just need to drive slowly," recommends Alma Mitchell, who works for a landscape company near the corner of Howard Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard.
Rik Moore, manager of a gas station near the same intersection, offers this strategy:
"I just get in the middle lane, as opposed to the sides, where it builds."
Mitchell and Moore work in what city officials say is one of Tampa's 10 most flood-prone zones, all of which are in South Tampa.
South Tampa floods because it's in a flat, low peninsula bordered by two bays. Development has displaced creeks and lakes that once collected stormwater, and pavement now covers soil that once soaked up the water.
Add to that a 1920s-era drainage system that has never been overhauled, and you can guarantee that a good summer soaking will turn roads into rivers.
City officials estimate that it will cost more than $800-million to get the stormwater system up to par. That's money the city doesn't have.
A stormwater tax, now in its second year, costs most Tampa residents about $12 a year.
It's possible the tax will increase in 2006, said Steve Daignault, Tampa's administrator of public works and utility services, noting that some people in Pinellas County pay more than $100 a year in stormwater fees.
The $1.9-million raised each year by stormwater fees in Tampa goes to maintenance of the existing stormwater system and studies to determine the cost of major upgrades and the appropriate fees.
Some people most inconvenienced by flooding say they'd be happy to pay more to stay high and dry.
"If I had to pay $100 a year, I'd pay $100 a year," says Lynn Reiber, who lives on Sterling Avenue, two blocks east of a top-10 spot on Dale Mabry Highway between Henderson Boulevard and Neptune Street.
Family members have had their cars damaged by water, and last spring, Reiber bought her 85-year-old father a Jeep so that he could remain mobile during the rainy season.
"I did it for safety reasons," she says. "I felt like that was the vehicle he should drive."
Brucie Klay Boonstoppel, who owns a dance studio on Manhattan Avenue between Euclid Avenue and El Prado Boulevard, a notorious flood zone, says she tries to avoid driving altogether when the streets are flooded. She wouldn't complain about paying higher stormwater fees.
"If I could see some results, I'd be happy to," she says.
Mark Zewalk lives on Coachman Avenue near Bayshore Boulevard. It's a street where repeated flooding often brings sewer water into the street. A week after last week's storm, people on Coachman Avenue say the neighborhood still stinks.
Zewalk waits out the rains at work before driving home, knowing that Coachman will be under water, he says. He's ready to pay for a fix.
"If I had some assurance that it's going to go to the infrastructure and had been thoroughly studied, I would be willing to pay more," he says.
Others are skeptical.
"The money needs to come from somewhere to fix it, but the property taxes are high enough," says Chris Hale, a professor who lives on Coachman.
Lynn Moore has lived at the corner of Cleveland Street and Lois Avenue, another of Tampa's top 10, for 18 months. She and her husband, Bob, moved there from six blocks away after their home closer to West Shore Boulevard flooded several times, forcing them to replace the carpeting and portions of walls.
"We try to stay out of areas where we know it's low, which is basically the whole West Shore basin," she says.
But she thinks she already shells out enough money to the government.
"Our property taxes are incredible, and we have water standing in our driveway every time it rains," she says.
Still, the South Tampa faithful love their neighborhoods enough to put up with the inconvenience.
"I love South Tampa," Reiber says. "I love the fact that we are a peninsula. We get the breezes down here. It's beautiful by the water."
She likes the proximity to the malls, the airport, grocery stores, art venues and Bayshore Boulevard. And so she'll continue to do what everyone else in South Tampa does when it rains.
Pray. Drive slowly. Search, often in vain, for a dry street. And wait for the water to go down.
