JACKSONVILLE, Fla — The Mccoy Creek is just one of many creeks in Jacksonville that can cause hazardous flooding throughout neighborhoods like Mixon Town.
“It looks like a river. If you go out there trying to go towards Mccoy Creek you can drown. There are so many cars that get caught up under the water," said Chinchilla Smart, a resident that has lived in Mixon Town for decades.
Smart says flooding has been an issue for as long as she could remember.
“If we have like a two-hour rain, it’s going to flood, and you can’t get through and all you see is animals getting ran over like the turtle," said Smart.
City Councilman Reggie Gaffney says he lived in Mixon Town when he was seven years old.
Gaffney says it’s time for the city to use its resources to fix overflowing creeks to end the flooding in neighborhoods.
“It won’t happen this year but if you look around you can see that the city has begun the process of trying to widen it and clean it out. So that way those dishes could hold more water," said Gaffney.
Gaffney says the project should be finished in four to five years.
While we may be expecting rain for the next few days Gaffney says to make sure your drainage near your house is clean to reduce flooding and if it needs cleaning, call the city.
“As you can imagine we [have] thousands of drainages and they don’t always make it. So they need other eyes to let them know to come out and clean," said Gaffney.