Nor’easter brings heavy rains, winds and flooding to coast

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — A strong Nor’easter left parts of St. Augustine nearly underwater.

“It floods every single time. It doesn’t even have to be a torrential downpour,” said Jesse Asner, a resident in St. Augustine.

Along Arricola Avenue some neighbors even decided to take a different form of transportation like canoes to get through the streets. Asner says his area floods all the time.

“The water quickly took over the road over the course of a few hours and you never know how bad it’s going to get considering how bad it’s gotten before,” Asner said.

Major tidal flooding Saturday morning led to road closures, even shutting down the Bridge of Lions for a period of time. A Facebook video showed a boat being pulled by strong waves on the Matanzas River, the surrounding area is cautioned off with a boat tethered to a tree in downtown.

Another video sent to Action News Jax showing a condo being hit near the Matanzas inlet bridge.

St. Augustine flooding is nothing new, whether its rainstorms or hurricanes.

Action News Jax first told you the impacts of Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Irma. Since then, the city has taken steps to fix the problem.

A spokesperson for St. Augustine told Action News Jax there’s currently $36 million worth of flood mitigation projects underway throughout St. Augustine right now to help.

To name a few: the Lincolnville drainage project is complete, FEMA 13 Lift Stations Rehabilitation project is underway — which helps both under and aboveground stations to carry sewer water out of homes — the South Whitney/West King street project in West Augustine has been completed as well and 43 tide-check valves have been installed to help tidal surges.

The Lake Maria Sanchez project is still in design, but they don’t have the money for it yet. That will address flooding that comes in at the lake below City Hall.

Asner says help can’t come soon enough.

“The city needs to have a better contingency [plan] when stuff like this happens so damage can be controlled,” Asner said.

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