Residents tired of San Marco flooding

Wednesday's downpours highlighted issue

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Dawn Shinn says every time it rains in her San Marco neighborhood, it floods.

A day after Wednesday's downpours, she was left with diapers and other trash that washed into her yard.

Shinn has lived in her home along Cedar Street near Hendricks Avenue for 20 years and now needs "no wake zone" signs in her yard.

She's stopped growing a garden because it just gets washed away. Her garage floods, and she says her toilets get backed up.

And her house is almost paid for.

"This is an investment," Shinn said. "The back of the house is starting to sink down some, and the street, it's not draining at all."

Chris Taylor lives a couple doors down and is just as frustrated.

"It was really flooded," he said. "We had to drive through the yard up on here just to get up in the house yesterday, and cars couldn't get back and forth through here."

"We've been trying for years for them to come and take care of it, and no one seems to care or want to come out at all," Shinn said.

The city says, "Previous pump stations projects at Landon Park and Children's Way have greatly improved drainage and reduced flooding in the San Marco area. While there were some upgrades to drainage piping throughout the recently completed San Marco Blvd. Streetscape Project, overall drainage was not part of the project scope."

Flooding especially poses a problem in low areas of San Marco during high tide, like it did Wednesday. And the drains just can't keep up.

Shinn said she'd like the city to clean them out more often and put curbs on her street.

"These are the original San Marco curbs," she said. "I think that would alleviate -- we almost got splashed. ... You imagine when people drive like that, because they think they have to drive faster."

That's when cars and even SUVs get stuck.

"It's been a mess, it's been a total mess, really," Taylor said.