JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Rick Marchiaonda has lived in his Arlington neighborhood for more than 40 years. And he says it's been a while since he's seen flooding like he saw Thursday. "I looked and I said oh my gosh, it is a lot of rain. And it's got nowhere to go."
No where to go, because he says the drains in this neighborhood clog easily. He says the city is pretty good about cleaning them out. But it doesn't take much to stop them up again.
So, we wanted to know, what can Marchiaonda and his neighbors do about the problem? We took our questions to Jim Robinson, Director of Public Works for the City of Jacksonville.
Robinson said, "Storm drain cleaning is based on reports of a problem."
He says if drainage is a problem in your neighborhood, the best thing you can do is call the city at (904) 630-CITY, and file a complaint.
"Those complaints actually flow right through to putting work orders on our superintendent's desk that they can go out and handle," said Robinson.
Marchiaonda says he cleans out what he can. He'll wait for the city to do the rest. In the meantime, he hopes for sunny skies. "I know we need it," he said. "But we either get it all at one time or we don't get nothing for a long time."
Wondering just how much rain we've gotten lately?
Before Tropical Storm Beryl, we were 32 inches below average for rainfall, going all the way back to January 1st, 2011.
Since then, the Southside has seen 14.8 inches of rain.
Nearly, half of the 18 month deficit has been made up in less than two weeks.
And we've had more than a quarter of our annual rainfall in the past two weeks.
