TOWN 'N COUNTRY, Fla. (WFTS) — For nearly 50 years, one Town 'n' Country family says their Bay Crest Park home never flooded, not even during Hurricane Elena back in 1985. But now, they say even summer showers are pushing water halfway up their driveway.
“My husband bought our home in Bay Crest Park in 1974. Until Hurricane Helene, last year, we have never flooded,” Donna Quinones told Tampa Bay 28 reporter Jada Williams. “Hurricane Elena in 1985 sat out there for three days and we did not flood. Now with every slight bit of rain our streets flood going 6–9 feet up my driveway.”
Watch full report from Jada Williams
She said the storm drains at the end of her street are too small: just 8 inches, and the grates don’t have the debris baskets that are used to keep trash, construction runoff, and even chunks of drywall from clogging the system.
“The ditch behind Stillbrook and Millwood is overgrown and has not been cleaned out for years. There is an outstanding ticket from June,” she said. “In addition, in 2018 the Causeway had work done to increase the ebb and flow of the Tampa Bay. As a result our canals are slowly filling with silt. High tide now covers the top of the storm drains. Two years ago at high tide there was visible space on the top of the drains.”
When weekend storms rolled through, David Thiessen said the water rose quickly.
“The water just [kept] getting higher and higher, and it wasn’t going nowhere,” Thiessen said. “Within an hour, there was a kid out here fishing, and it was shin-deep. He was out here fishing, walking around and everything else, and then the cars just come blowing through. I thought there was a couple cars that were going to stall out, but I mean that water is deep.”
Thiessen said the standing water was shocking, given that there are storm drains on both corners of the intersection.
“It wasn’t even a hard rain or nothing like that. So it’s pretty scary for everybody around here,” he said. “And when cars come through here, you get the flooding, you know what I mean, the tidal waves. It’s pretty intense. The ground, you see how saturated everything is. I think this tree started leaning after all this. You never know, because it’s squishy ground.”
Thiessen, who is helping repair a house nearby, said the family he’s working for had never experienced flooding before last year’s hurricane.
“They said they never had flooding here before the hurricane. So after the hurricane, now they’re starting to notice the flooding and everything else more,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s something in the drainage systems from all the hurricane stuff that’s blocking it up, or, you know, it’s got to be something like from that storm, just all the little types of debris, and they can’t get to the pipes good enough to clean it out.”
He said he has seen county trucks in the area, including vacuum trucks used to clear the drains.
“But by the time they get here, the water is already down,” Thiessen said. “If they don’t see it, I guess they can’t say they need to work on it.”
For other residents, the frustration has stretched for years.
“Our flooding is not resolving, and it’s getting worse,” said Quinones. “Even with simple rains, we are getting as high in my driveway as nine feet of water up the driveway.”
She said she and her husband have lived in Bay Crest for decades and only started seeing major issues in the last few years.
“Probably just a few years ago, in 2018 they did some stuff with the bridge on the causeway, and it has slowly gotten worse and worse as a result of that,” she said. “Two years ago, not last year’s floods, but two years ago, there was some flooding … but still not enough to damage our house. Now it’s just getting really bad.”
She worries about the future.
“Oh, 100% that my house will be underwater again, and higher than it was last year,” she said. “We were fortunate. Helene got us. Milton never went in my house. But this has progressively gotten worse.”
Jim Furga, another neighbor, said flooding has become predictable, not just during hurricane season but after any ordinary afternoon storm.
“Especially on this corner, Stillbrook and Stolls, every time it rains, not just during hurricane season, this whole corner floods, and it floods bad,” Furga said.
He said Bay Crest’s stormwater system isn’t built to handle modern runoff.
“The place, Bay Crest, was built in the 60s, early 60s, and those eight-inch pipes down there, there’s not enough water can get through,” Furga said. “There’s way more water coming through here than what used to come through here back in the 60s. And it just floods here. It floods up the street, it floods down at the other corner.”
Furga recalled flooding waist-deep during Hurricane Helene, but said what’s happening now is different.
“This is just not the normal surge from the downpours we get in Tampa, and the system’s antiquated. It needs to be updated,” he said.
Hillsborough County told Tampa Bay 28 they have been working in Bay Crest.
“County staff completed a comprehensive cleaning of the buried stormwater pipes throughout the Baycrest community in June 2025,” the county said in a statement.
A follow-up inspection in July identified additional clearing needs near Stillbrook Avenue and Millwood Drive. That work is scheduled between late September and October, weather permitting.
The county also said a canal crew is working southward through Town ’N Country and should be in Bay Crest in the coming months.
But residents say repairs and cleaning can’t come soon enough.
“They keep telling us we have small drains. They tell us that eventually the substructure does need to be replaced. But it’s not right now,” one resident said. “Please don’t get me wrong. We appreciate the fact that they are looking at it. But in the interim of all of that, what are we supposed to do? When you have a house that’s totaled … and now this year looks like we’re going to do it again.”
'By the Grace of God, I’m still here:' Seminole man survives lightning strike outside pizza shop
Travis Kurtz says he’s lucky to be alive after collapsing outside Rizzotto’s Pizzeria — and credits the owner, his girlfriend, and a few guardian angels for saving his life.
