County vows to research flooding problems

PACE — Some Pace residents are reeling from the multiple storms of the last two weeks, which resulted in repeated flooding. Following their pleas to the county for help, the Board of County Commissioners voted Thursday to have its engineering staff research ways to address the issue.

During Monday’s Board of County Commissioners meeting, John Mahoney, who lives on Belvedere Circle in Tiburon East in Pace, said he and his family moved to the area to raise their kids and have them attend school in a highly-rated district.

Mahoney described how he, his two-year-old, and pregnant wife dealt with the June 6 storm.

“Tuesday I got home from work,” he said, “and it started raining. It keeps raining. I got landscaping blocks. I was never in this situation before. I was trying to sit by the doors praying the water would recede. It was bleeding through walls.”

Mahoney said he just wants a safe home again after having to evacuate.

“We can’t return. We’re unable to sleep. Everything is ruined. The flood insurance companies doing their thing. It’s scary. That’s what I wanted to impress on you guys, how scary that situation was.”

Deborah Aeppli, along with a few other owners, she said, boarded horses at a pasture on West Spencerfield Road next to the Twelve Oaks neighborhood. Due to the flooding in the pasture, Aeppli moved her horse and another’s into her backyard.

“People who owned…livestock, (we) moved at 3 a.m., my livestock in my backyard to save their lives,” she said. “I waded through water waist deep.”

This wasn’t the first time Aeppli’s livestock have been in danger, she said.

“I called (the) county in 2016. I called in January. No one seems to care…People have fish in their homes. My livestock has fish in their drinking water. What if we had snakes? What if alligators come out?”

Kim Carroll’s Twelve Oaks Drive home flooded four times in the five years she’s lived there, she said. She offered to sell her home and level it for drainage purposes.

“Who has $100,000 to lift up a house that’s already been flooded?” she said. “My husband said he can’t take it. We won’t rebuild the house again…This was our dream home, too. I was going to die in this home, but now I’m going to be homeless.”

Commissioner Sam Parker and Santa Rosa County Engineer Roger Blaylock traveled into neighborhoods in Pace to observe the flooding and damage.

“These are multimillion-dollar issues. Let us take 30 days and look at those,” Parker said. “We are absolutely aware of it.”