St. Pete community experiences flood issues; asks for help

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — A St. Pete neighborhood has dealt with flood waters inside their homes several times over the past year.

A homeowner there, named Allison, reached out to Tampa Bay 28, saying the issue has gotten worse, and she's scared for this hurricane season.

WATCH: St. Pete community experiences flood issues; asks for help

Tampa Bay 28's Casey Albritton went out to the neighborhood and listened to homeowners about the problem.

"We don't even like the thunderstorms in the afternoon. It's terrifying… our neighbors across the street, I watched them carry out everything they owned last year. We had to clear out this room of everything. It's very frightening, especially after seeing a regular thunderstorm take over the street and coming up your driveway," said Jennifer Wells.

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Wells has lived along 16th Avenue North and 58th Street for over three decades, and said her neighborhood never flooded until last year's storms.

"As it started coming up the driveway and garbage cans started floating down the road, manhole covers were coming out of the street, it started to come into the side room over here and before you knew it, it was all the way in the house," said Wells.

Jennifer Wells

Richard White also lives along 16th Avenue North and said last year the water got so high, it covered these bushes in his front yard and damaged his home.

He said he hasn't seen work done on the stormwater drains in years.

"The first five years we were here, they replaced this storm sewer in the city, but now it doesn't matter. The flooding is back," said White.

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Now both White and Wells said their street floods easily.

"We had our typical afternoon thunderstorm and the road started flooding very quickly to the point where I told my husband I said 'look outside right now because if we have to go and block something up'… and that's just your regular afternoon thunderstorm," said Wells.

"Well of course it makes you nervous. You want to take care of everything you own and protect yourself as best you can," said White.

Homeowners contacted Tampa Bay 28 about the issue…and said they had reached out to the City of St. Pete but have not received help yet.

Tampa Bay 28 contacted the city to see if there are any plans to check the drainage system and hasn't heard back yet.

White and Wells said they hope some improvements are made before the next big storm.

"I don't know how much work needs to be done, but it's obvious that there's work that needs to be done," said White.

"Figure out why it's not working, what's broken, where is it broken? It's been 31 years that we've lived here, and for it to start happening now, there's obviously a much bigger problem than the rain coming down," said Wells.