Local

Owners of St. Augustine used car dealership say $70,000 in inventory swallowed by flooding

St. Augustine, FL. — The City of St. Augustine experienced back-to-back weekends of major flooding.

At Monday’s St. Augustine City Commission meeting, flooding concerns were addressed.

Public Works Director Reuben Franklin provided an After Action Report regarding the flooding that recently occurred throughout the city.

Franklin said a nor’easter coupled with a king tide, which is an exceptionally high tide, the weekend of Sept. 19 caused city-wide flooding.

“We were also surprised by the amount of flooding that occurred with the nor’easter,” Franklin said.

Then on Sunday, Franklin said storm drains had a hard time keeping up with a lot of rain that fell in such a short period of time.

The Action News Jax First Alert Weather Team says Sunday’s storm dumped three to four inches of rain in St. Augustine.

Jozef Vavrek and Stan Selecky own a used car dealership at the corner of U.S. 1 and S.R. 207.

They said $70,000 in inventory was swallowed by the flooding Sunday.

“We most likely lost 85% of our vehicles,” Selecky said. “Probably 25 out of 28 here at the lot.”

The building on the lot was also damaged by the water.

“It was horrible,” Vavrek said. “Everything was underwater.”

Usually with a hurricane or major storm, the owners said they have a heads-up and move the vehicles, but the impacts from Sunday’s storms were unexpected.

“We weren’t ready,” Selecky said.

The owners said flooding has been an ongoing problem in the area.

“It’s a big problem for us,” Vavrek said. “It does need to be fixed because it’s not really fair.”

The owners attended Monday’s St. Augustine Commission meeting where they pled for help.

Franklin said Public Works would be following up with them.