JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — Action News Jax is working to get answers for neighbors living along 1st Street North in Jacksonville Beach who say they’ve been frustrated over flooding for months.
Beth Acheson has lived in her home across the street from the Serena Point condominiums for about 50 years and says, over the last 8-10 months, her street corner has seen more flooding than she cares to handle.
“Sometimes things get overlooked, but this is really a safety and a health hazard now,” Acheson said.
Acheson shared pictures with Action News Jax showing flooding by her street corner caused by storms the First Alert Weather Team tracked along the beaches on Sunday. She believes the storm drains are backing up to the point of flooding the street.
“You’ve got people here, the water is backing into their properties,” Acheson said, “there could be lawsuits.”
This is the second time Action News Jax has told you about drainage issues on 1st Street in the last few months. We told you back in May when neighbors living around 1st Street South were still waiting on a project to be finished that’s meant to improve drainage issues in the area.
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But Acheson believes the drainage issues near her home may have been caused by a non-city project, the 10-mile beach renourishment project through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year.
“There’s nowhere for the water to go now,” Acheson told us, after taking us to the storm drain on the beach where water collected from the street is supposed to go.
Acheson and some of her other neighbors think new dunes from the project may have blocked water from being able to get through the drains and into the ocean from the beach.
“We shouldn’t have all this flooding in the neighborhood,” said a woman living in the Serena Point condominiums, who didn’t want to share her name with Action News Jax.
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She did, however, share more pictures of what the flooded street looked like after rain on Sunday. She told Action News Jax she’d contacted the city about the issue last week.
We reached out to Sandy Golding, the councilwoman representing this area of the beach. She told us she’s aware of the issue and that the city’s public works department is assessing the
problem. When we reached out to the city’s public works department, our number was taken down and passed to the department’s director.
We’re still waiting to hear from the city how long a fix may take and what exactly it may look like.
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