Jacksonville neighbors will have to wait until next year for flood relief from pump project

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — San Marco looked like a swimming pool on Wednesday after significant rainfall flooded streets in the area.

In other neighborhoods, like Englewood, the rain led to stalled cars and even one evacuation from a flooded home.

“It was a lake,” William Rodriguez said. “I’m going ok. I was a little scared, especially for the lady across the street.”

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Rodriguez lives on Albemarle Avenue in Englewood across from JoAnne Addison. On Wednesday, Addison was helped out of her home by her nephew after flood water breached the exterior and got inside. Her granddaughter said they’re still working to clean up the inside.

The First Alert Weather Team said Englewood received 8 to 10 inches of rain by Wednesday night. San Marco received 6+ inches of rain.

“We had calls all throughout the district of just unprecedented flooding,” Councilman Joe Carlucci said.

Carlucci represents District 5, which encompasses San Marco, Mirmar, Lakewood, Englewood, and other neighbors near the St. Johns River. He said crews have been going out across the city to check out complaints post-storm.

“The public works team is looking at all of those [calls]. We’re gonna have a meeting once they’re done compiling all the data and all the plans,” Carlucci said. “You have to look at elevation. You have to look at the size of the drainage.”

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In San Marco, there are two operational pump stations that help alleviate flooding—one by Landon Park and the other by Children’s Way near Nemours.

Right now, the third pump station on LaSalle Street is under construction. It’s been a work in progress since breaking ground in May of 2023. The project, once complete, will help with chronic flooding on LaSalle Street and San Marco Boulevard. While the pump station itself is almost complete, the project won’t be finished until quarter one of 2025, which is between January and March.

“I think what they [crews] originally anticipated was they were gonna do more work at one time, and then as they started getting into the project and they saw how much disruption it can cause, they scaled back some of that timeline,” Carlucci said. “And, said, hey we need to do one street at a time.”

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The next steps of the project include installing new piping on Naldo Avenue. Then crews will move to Belmonte and Colombo and so on.

“They’re working as fast as they can, because you can imagine, the more it floods over there it’s harder for them to continue to work,” Carlucci said. “So, they wanna get that thing online ASAP.”

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