JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Street flooding Wednesday morning left cars stalled and drivers stranded during their morning commutes.
LaSalle Street and San Marco Boulevard stayed flooded late into the afternoon, construction on a pump station will eventually help get water out of there faster.
For some folks, that day can’t come soon enough.
“Store opener that got there around 8 o’clock was taking video of the front door saying it’s flooded up to the stairs," said Flame Broiler Owner Jackie Grzebin.
When Grzebin got that call and saw the video from her employee of the restaurant on San Marco Boulevard, she jumped in her car to get sandbags to protect it from water getting in.
“I have a SUV, so I thought it should be fine to drive in the middle of the road, then all of a sudden, my car turned completely off," said Grzebin.
On top of water in her business, now Grzebin had a stalled out car stuck in flood water. “It was heavy rain, so there’s that, but I feel like, if we had better drainage, especially in that area, it really could’ve been avoided."
Jacksonville City Council Member Joe Carlucci stopped to try to help Grzebin while he was driving around to see the flooding in his district first hand.
“It was like I’ve never seen it before," said Carlucci. "I’ve lived here all my life, but I started seeing picture after picture, and I was like, ‘I need to go out there and see what’s going on.’”
As Carlucci found spots with major flooding, he contacted public works to get crews out for assessments.
“Said ‘Guys, please go out there as soon as possible,'" said Carlucci. "Once the water goes down, it’s harder to investigate it. You can see more when it’s up and where the pinch-points are.”
Carlucci says folks near the Flame Broiler at LaSalle and San Marco Boulevard should get some relief when a new pump station opens up.
He says phase one, the station itself, is nearly done, now onto phase two for the next few months, connecting it to the rest of San Marco’s infrastructure.
“Hopefully we’ll be standing at the intersection of LaSalle and San Marco boulevard in a year and it’ll look dry," said Carlucci.
Carlucci says he’s pushing for an investigation into San Marco’s drainage infrastructure.
Now that public works spent the day assessing, they’ll pass that to engineering to design solutions, then to city council to put the money behind it.