Douglas Woods was still sloshing through 3-foot-high waves to get to his home nearly a week after Hurricane Milton put his Land O'Lakes neighborhood under water.
"I moved here in '94 and I've had water in my garage a couple of times, so this is by far the worst that I've ever seen," he said in October. "There's nothing to compare it to."
His neighborhood slopes downhill to Cypress Creek. But Pasco County managers still allowed dozens of homes to be built there back in the 1970s and 1980s.
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Seventy miles to the south, Alexandra Coe, who lives on Phillippi Creek, told Sarasota County commissioners earlier this year she's been dealing with flooding for eight years. But Milton was something else.
"First, a 30-foot river came through my property, then a 50-foot River, and then a 70-foot river," she said. "We looked at the flood maps together, we reviewed some other documents, and I said to both of them, this 70-foot river that goes through my property is not in these flood maps."
The stories are similar across the region. Last year’s storms dumped feet of rain, causing creeks, streams and lakes to reclaim historic flood plains.
To the east, the Lakeland Livin’ Mobile Home Park was underwater for weeks. Nearly one hundred homes were allowed in this natural floodplain, as Lake Bonny refilled areas that had once been wet.
And in northern Hillsborough County, hundreds of people were trapped for days, even though their homes weren't in flood zones. But the only road into their development was — and it turned into a wall of water.
Dick Abare said his Carrollwood neighborhood has flooded numerous times since new subdivisions were allowed to be built.
"We were developed in the mid to late 70s. Two other communities have been developed since us," he said. "Development is what makes the world go round. But you have to allow for those of us who have been here since the mid to late 70s, and we have other neighbors of ours that have been here 30-plus years. You can't stop construction. And I'd be lying if I even said it shouldn't be you can't stop it, but we all know who greased the wheels of commerce."
All this begs the question: Why were homes allowed to be built in these areas to begin with? And what is being done to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future?
"A lot of times, communities build, build, build, and then ask questions later, right? And that's very important that whenever we approve new developments, because you have so many areas, including in Pasco County, where you have a lot of new developments, that we want to make sure we don't repeat those mistakes."Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera
Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera spoke during a recent meeting about hurricane flooding in the Forest Hills neighborhood.
"A lot of times, communities build, build, build, and then ask questions later, right? And that's very important that whenever we approve new developments, because you have so many areas, including in Pasco County, where you have a lot of new developments, that we want to make sure we don't repeat those mistakes," he said.
"And this storm season in 2024 was a double punch to the jaw, and after Milton, our jaw was broken," Viera said. "So we've got to make sure that we learn from what happened and equip ourselves in the future."
Milton was a special case, officials said. Helene had dumped a month's worth of rain just two weeks earlier.
"And then we got Milton, so it was, unfortunately, a bit of a perfect storm, said Kyle Dollman, the floodplain administrator for Hillsborough County.
He said the area received more rainfall last year than it ever had since recordkeeping started in 1890.
Many called it a 100-year flood event. Dollman thinks it might have been a 500-year event.
There are several ways to minimize future floods, but none of them come cheap. Building ponds, buying floodplains and restricting new development are some. But Dollman said that won't help areas that are already heavily developed.
"If we talk about buying a low-lying area, we're talking about buying it from private individuals. Unfortunately, it's probably not a scenario where there's a large swath of undeveloped land that we could just purchase. If there was, it would probably be doing a pretty good job on its own holding water and mitigating flooding," he said.
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There has been some movement, however.
Sarasota County just updated its Watershed Master Plan. It includes mapping wetlands and natural water channels, and finding a way to pay for protecting those areas. That way, floodwaters can have a place to settle before reaching nearby homes.
After months of urging from neighborhood residents, Sarasota County commissioners agreed to use $75 million in federal hurricane recovery money to dredge Phillippi Creek and other local waterways that flooded.
Fred Bloetscher of Florida Atlantic University is a consultant for Sarasota County and said they're working on identifying problem areas to then go into more detailed stormwater master plans and modeling to come up with specific solutions for those areas.
"There's engineering that can occur and ultimately, if this makes sense to the community, there'll be construction," he said.
Lakeland and Polk County are also studying what needs to be fixed so the historic flooding never happens again.
And Tampa and Hillsborough County are holding public meetings. Tampa will buy new pumps to move water around and generators to keep them running when power goes out.
"A lot of the older stuff is a problem. A lot of things that were done to older structures that maybe were done without permits, or were done when things were more lenient and lax, some of that comes back to bite us now."Hillsborough Commissioner Harry Cohen
But Dollman said permanently solving the problem will be much more costly.
"A lot of development that was in place before regulations were out there and we don't just go out there and say, 'hey guys, you know, this was permitted appropriately at the time, but you know, now things have changed and we're going to need you to put in a pond or something like that,'" he said.
Eventually, FEMA may update its flood maps, putting more people in areas that require insurance. That could force them to elevate their properties if they are repeatedly flooded.
Hillsborough Commissioner Harry Cohen was at a recent public meeting about inland flooding. Cohen said that many systems may be designed for regular, heavy afternoon storms where the ground is not already saturated.
"But they can't handle these once-in-a-100-year type storm events. And, and they're not designed for it, and we didn't pay for that when we built them," he continued.
Cohen said local governments have no choice but to step up.
"A lot of the older stuff is a problem," he said. "A lot of things that were done to older structures that maybe were done without permits, or were done when things were more lenient and lax, some of that comes back to bite us now."
The real question, Cohen said, is: Do local governments want to invest in hardier infrastructure?
The answer, he said, has to be yes — or what happened in 2024 may come back to bite us all again.
