Constant rain, flooding forces some from Plant City homes

PLANT CITY, Fla. - Dozens of families who live in Dover and Plant City are praying for relief from what seems like relentless rain.

They have been flooded for days and their nerves are wearing thin.

Mother nature has been especially brutal to people who live on Cooper Road.

Acre after acre is under water. Livestock has been moved off the property or onto higher ground. The water has crept into garages and is threatening many homes.

Andrea Dechore’s driveway has become a pond. Getting her kids to the end of the driveway and onto the school bus now requires a boat ride.

“I put them on the boat and I row them down early in the morning before daylight,” she told FOX 13.

The flooding is so bad, they no longer have running water.

“Our septic is under water,” her husband Rodney told us. “We can’t flush toilets and stuff like that.”

A few houses down, her neighbor left his house until the water subsides.

“It is just too nasty,” said his brother Jimmy Wood. “He walked to the back to get some stuff, and he wound up getting sick in that water.”

Teresa Pemberton says drainage problems are exacerbated because so many people are moving to the area for a country lifestyle.

She described the situations as, “Extreme development problems with no true foresight.”

Others say new culverts that take water from the east side of Cooper and funnel it onto the west side are another contributing factor.

Hillsborough County officials say the ground is supersaturated from all the rain and can’t absorb any more water.

Several employees were in the area Wednesday, checking ditches, culverts, and streams to see if they need to be cleaned out.