Robert Munnerlyn recalled watching a massive flow of storm water gush down his street and into his parent’s Orlo Vista home when Hurricane Irma swept through Central Florida in September 2017.
Within hours “the water was up to here,” Munnerlyn said, holding his hand up to his chest while standing in the front yard. “We lost five cars. We had to redo the walls. We had to redo the electrical. We lost all our furniture.”
Munnerlyn is among scores of longtime residents of Orlo Vista — a working-class community about five miles west of downtown Orlando — who were left with destroyed homes and ruined furniture after nearly 10 inches of rain fell within a day. The water overwhelmed pumps and overflowed three nearby retention ponds, forcing 500 homes to be evacuated because of flooding.
This week, Orange County commissioners took a step toward enacting a $10 million stormwater plan they hope will prevent future flooding in the Orlo Vista community by directing nearly $1.23 million — which includes $919,766 in federal funding — toward paying for design plans for dredging the ponds by several feet to make them hold more water.
Currently, the ponds — known collectively as Lake Venus and tucked on the southeast corner of the Kirkman Road and State Road 408 intersection — are about 12 feet deep from the top of the banks to the bottom, according to county documents.
After the design work is completed in about a year, the county will begin digging several feet to deepen and rebuild the ponds, including adding a new pump system. After approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the project should be completed in about two or three years, officials said.
“I know residents can breathe a sigh of relief knowing these improvements are coming,” said Orange County Commissioner Victoria Siplin, whose district includes Orlo Vista. “We must look at the infrastructure that is currently in place and whether it can handle the surrounding development that is going on. That is something that we have to keep our eyes on…But I’m just grateful that this [improvements] is happening.”
But many residents — although grateful the work is moving forward — question why the county just doesn’t buy up the properties. They worry that the next big storm may again overwhelm the ponds, especially if it comes before the project is completed.
“Something is better than nothing,” Patricia Shirer said as she sat outside the front door of her home. “I suppose we have to wait and see if it works. …But I’m happy that they’re trying something.”
Shirer’s home on Ronnie Circle is just a stone’s throw from the retention ponds. She remembers water rising up to three feet inside her house on the night when Hurricane Irma hit. She then spent six months in a Kissimmee motel waiting for her home to be rebuilt.
“I was sleeping, and then all I saw was water coming to me,” she said. “I thought I was drowning.”
Down the street, Luvenia McKenzie has lived in the neighborhood for more than three decades and had never seen flooding. But after Irma, she had to toss her furniture and rebuild many of the interior walls.
“It never dawned on me that this area floods,” she said.
A 2018 study proposed five different alternatives: buying the properties, expanding the retention ponds, pumping more water out of the ponds in the days before a major storm, creating larger berms or deepening the ponds. The work was done by Geosyntec, an engineering consulting firm hired by Orange County to study drainage issues and storm water improvements in Orlo Vista, including Westside Manor, after Irma.
County officials decided on excavating the ponds at a cost of $10 million as the most viable solution. They said buying out many of the Orlo Vista homes within the potential flood zone would cost nearly $29 million and take longer than excavating the ponds.
“We did not want to displace residents,” said Daniel Negron, the county’s chief engineer for stormwater management.
County officials also pointed out that the current pump system has been there for about 50 years and will be replaced with a more modern system as part of the project.
“The pumps were built in the early 1960s,” Negron said. “And they worked pretty well. But Irma dumped so much water in so little time.”
Even so, Munnerlyn, 47, said he and his neighbors now keep a nervous eye on the skies every time weather forecasters call for rain.
“Who’s to say that this won’t happen again,” he said. “This work won’t be done by this hurricane season or the next one. ….I think buying out the homes is the best solution.”
mcomas@orlandosentinel.com
