HERNANDO - While many county residents breathed a sigh of relief for the second time this month as a storm surge and flash flooding breached their yards but retreated before water could enter too many homes, Brenda Wilcox and her neighbors in the Arrowhead community began holding their breath.
"It's coming," she said, looking at the surrounding Withlacoochee River enveloping her River Road home, which began to resemble a houseboat as the river began to grow like a lake. She watched the pooling mass carefully as if it were the 1950s movie character the Blob consuming everything as it expanded. She wore waders and the key to a relative's home tied to a string around her neck.
Along with her boyfriend, they would use it to retreat to the home on higher ground. After Jeanne tore down several tree limbs, blocked her driveway and turned her yard into a pond, the situation "is going to get worse," she said.
The sprawling Arrowhead neighborhood, a jumbling maze of homes hidden by junglelike vines and canopy trees on mostly sugarsand roads west of State Road 200, has become county emergency officials' biggest concern. After Frances dangerously filled the north-flowing river to near flood levels, Jeanne dumped still more water on the embattled river, likely sending it over the brink and possibly into homes on Thursday, emergency management officials said.
"It is a major concern for us," county sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney said.
According to the National Weather Service, the Withlacoochee River at Holder had surpassed what is considered the flood stage, or 8 feet, by almost a foot Monday, leaving it mere inches from what is considered "major" flooding.
By Thursday or Friday, Tierney said, the river is forecast to crest as high as 10.5 feet, 1 foot higher than the point at which many neighborhood homes flood. The National Weather Service forecasts it could rise to nearly 11 feet by Oct. 2.
Officials from the Southwest Florida Water Management District brought worse news: To provide flood protection to lakefront properties, the district said it will begin releasing water through a flood control structure on the Hernando Pool of the Tsala Apopka Lake chain.
The structure releases water into an outfall canal that discharges into the north-flowing Withlacoochee River near Holder, which is south of the Arrowhead neighborhood.
A legal agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers requires water to be released when levels reach 39 feet in the Hernando Pool. As of Monday, the levels were over that.
Hurricane Jeanne dropped more than seven inches of rainfall at some sites around the Tsala Apopka Lake chain. Since Aug. 1, rainfall in the region has been recorded as high as 27 inches. The historical average for that time period is 14.3 inches.
Residents have been urged to boil their water, because their wells and water systems could be breached by contaminated floodwater. The river has been closed to all boaters, and a sheriff's mobile command center has been moved to Arrowhead, where deputies enforce a checkpoint on Stokes Ferry Road that limits community access to residents and workers.
A sandbag site has been set up just down the road and at the Gospel Island Fire Department, while officials have opened an emergency shelter at Riverside Christian Fellowship, 7771 N Carl G. Rose Highway (State Road 200), for evacuees who might need to escape the river's wrath.
Some Arrowhead homes have already been filled with water, while a few cabins at the end of River Road that sit on the Withlacoochee River are flooded and unapproachable because of the high water levels.
A few miles north on State Road 200, at the Citrus-Marion county line, head chef Dan Blust and several others use drills to take apart a deck at the original Stumpknockers on the River, a landmark restaurant that sits in a century-old building.
The restaurant suffered standing water from rainfall, and workers were building earth berms and replacing the deck with sandbags to keep the encroaching river, which spilled into the parking lot, out. Fifty sandbags intended to form a fence Sunday already had failed, and the water crawled about 60 yards from its normal banks and onto the restaurant's property.
"Two feet," John Channell, brother of the restaurant's owner, said, "and it will come in the dining room floor."
Elsewhere, the calm skies Monday brought solace to the storm surge weary, who for the second time saw waters recede after watching Jeanne mix high tides with rain and push it toward their homes late Sunday.
"It came close, but it didn't get in," said 81-year-old Jeannette Tillman, who along with her husband, Blaine, 84, filled a wheelbarrow with seaweed that they had raked out of their Crystal Shore neighborhood yard, which sits on Kings Bay in Crystal River. "Ain't it wonderful?"
The Port Hotel and Marina at the end of Kings Bay Drive, however, was not as lucky. Coastal surge sent at least 3 inches of water into the hotel's office and two other buildings. At 7 a.m. Monday, fish were still swimming in the hotel's parking lot.
"We were really lucky," said Teresa Gordon at the front desk, as flies buzzed around the swampy smelling carpet. "We didn't get it too bad."
In Cedar Lake Estates, a neighborhood just east of U.S. 19 near Seven Rivers Regional Medical Center, rain filled roads again with several inches of standing water, forcing some residents to leave their sedans at the neighborhood entrance.
"Water's not as deep as it was last time," said Barbara Newton. "Last time it almost came up to the house."
Last time, Newton had placed a "NO WAKE Please" sign at the foot of her driveway because trucks were sending waves crashing into her garage. This time, water took up only a third of her driveway, enough for nearby egrets to pick at bugs swimming in it.
"This is getting to be a little too much on a weekly basis," said Newton, who, along with her husband, had survived Hurricane Andrew while living in Homestead, which was without power for 30 days. "Hopefully, that's the end of it."
Unfortunately, county officials said, for the Arrowhead neighborhood troubles are just beginning.
