Black neighborhoods left struggling in floodwaters
The historic rains of Tropical Storm Eta left many poor, minority residents struggling to recover and questioning why their neighborhoods have been left out of drainage improvements.
The challenges were evident Sunday night when water invaded every inch of Wilma Wright’s home in Melrose Park area of Fort Lauderdale.
“The water was coming through the walls, up from the tub. Every wall I had in my house,” she said.
Wright said she spent most of her day Tuesday sweeping up the water and putting it in a garbage can so neighbors can help her get rid of it. She said she has insurance, but she could not give a detailed estimate of the cost, saying it would be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The problem with standing water may lie with the age and makeup of the system that keeps the area from reverting to the swamp it once was — and to the fact that upgrades to the system were left out of the city of Fort Lauder
dale’s plans for dealing with climate change.
Melrose Park and the adjacent neighborhood of Mel rose Man ors were unincorporated areas that were brought into Fort Lauderdale in 2002. The two make up part of a historically black section of South Florida.
The system for draining storm water there was pretty basic: grassy patches of land called swales where rain can sit and evaporate, and a series of underground pipes that collect rain from the streets and into retention ditches.
It’s unclear why the area has not been targeted for improvement. It got left out of Fort Lauderdale’s initial climate change planning, which also has to contend with issues like increased tidal flooding.
The mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Dean Trantalis, said Tuesday that Melrose Park and another neighborhood called Middle River Terrace were not chosen as oneof the seven areas where the City was set to invest $200million dollars of bond money for work related to climate change.
“Unfortunately, we are coming to realize that those seven areas may have been identified more on politics than needs,” Trantalis said. “Melrose was not selected, as well as Middle River terrace, which also suffered major storm impacts.”
“There’s nothing more we can do right now other than to perhaps add one or two neighborhoods to the scheme becausewe already began the process. Again, the situation got ahead of us,” Trantalis said.
The seven neighborhoods chosen by the city as areas where improvement should be focused are Edgewood, River Oaks, Dorsey Riverbend, Durrs, Progresso, Victoria Park and Southeast Isles.
Of those seven neighborhoods, only one — Durrs —appears similar in composition and history to Mel rose Park and Melrose Manors.
It’s unclear how much money improving the storm water drainage systems in neighborhoods like Melrose Park and Melrose Manor would cost or how quickly the work might be accomplished.
“We do have plans and we will continue towork on those plans,” said Raj Verma, public works director for Fort Lauderdale. “If we have to upgrade and there is the possibility of upgrading the system, that is what we are going to do.”
Sean Cooley, communications director for the South Florida Water Management district, which handles drainage for the region, said municipal level drainage systems — like the swales and pipes in Melrose Park — are often the ones that fail and buckle under the stress of the increased rains.
“(Our system) has a ton of capacity at this point,” he said of the main canal system. “We haven’t had major issues delivering water away from people right now. What you are seeing is that the secondary systems don’t have the ability to push water into our systems,” he said.
On Tuesday, many people in Melrose Park were still struggling, just like Wright.
Cleomin Deshomme, who also lives on her street, said water flooded her home Sunday night. In addition to damaging furniture and other items in her home, she said her toilet also hasn’t been functional since then.
Wright said she believes the problem lies with the city, who she says hasn’t done enough to keep the drains clean since October. She said on Oct. 21 the neighborhood received a lot of rain on Oct. 21 and there have been issues ever since.
“There has been no one here cleaning these drains,” she said.