By Amy Green, WMFE, Inside Climate News
ORLANDO, Fla.—Like many homes in central Florida, Janét Buford-Johnson’s is situated on a pond that in better times would be considered picturesque. During Hurricane Ian in September the pond swelled into a horrific torrent, nearly swallowing her and her daughter alive.
Suddenly and violently in the night, powered by Ian’s unrelenting rains, the water rose inside Buford-Johnson’s tidy sand- and cream-colored home to at least three feet deep. As the water rushed in she and her 15-year-old daughter were rescued before dawn by boat.
“It’s traumatizing,” she said. “The water was high enough where, if I fell and I hit my head, I would not be alive and nor would my daughter.”
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For Buford-Johnson and other residents of Orlo Vista, a diverse low-income neighborhood west of downtown Orlando, it was the latest flood. The neighborhood also was inundated during Hurricane Irma in 2017, although less severely. Now as residents face the difficult dilemma of what to do about their dilapidated houses, county commissioners have agreed to a $23.6 million project to deepen the pond and two others and also install a new pump station.
The commissioners say when the work is finished in February 2024 the ponds will be able to hold another 90 million gallons of water, providing more flood control for Orlo Vista while also protecting neighborhoods downstream along Shingle Creek, where all the water here ultimately flows on its way south to the Everglades and out to sea. But Buford-Johnson is unconvinced. She especially worries that the work will not be done in time for the next hurricane season.
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