DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A project to prevent flooding in the Midtown neighborhood of Daytona Beach is officially starting with the agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers being signed next week.
The study will target the low-lying area to look at how flooding collects and how it can be fixed.
“There’s no room for the rain to go anywhere and it just sits,” said resident Tamara McIntyre
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McIntyre said right now they dread even a small amount of rain. When the 2022 hurricanes rolled in with record flooding, it left most residents displaced in the neighborhood.
“I lost two motorcycles, my garage flooded, it was just terrible. There was water everywhere for four days,” McIntyre said.
Mayor Derrick Henry described the area as a bowl: It’s the lowest-lying area in the city and just collects water that many times has no where to go.
“It’s done that for 75 years. It’s the poorest part of our community 32114 zip code. It’s one of the poorest areas in Florida, so the people who can least afford it are often inundated and flooded out,” he said.
Help is finally on the way, though, with the Army Corps of Engineers study being signed into agreement next week and starting next month.
It’s something Congressman Mike Waltz has fought for over the last 10 years.
“It’s important for people to understand that only about six of these projects are funded across the entire country per year,” Waltz said.
Waltz said experts will come together for the feasibility study to find a solution to the flooding. It’ll cost about $3 million, paid for entirely by the Army Corps, and will take about three years.
“The other important thing is the federal government buys literally the following decades of maintenance and repair and upkeep,” he said.
For the residents who call Midtown home, it’s a sigh of relief.
“I don’t want to move! It’s just perfect. The weather is always perfect except for the hurricanes and the rain but other than that it’s just beautiful and I love it,” McIntyre said.