Hillsborough County working to alleviate flooding in Seffner neighborhood

Residents still flooded after Hurricane Milton

Jennifer Kveglis reports

SEFFNER, Fla. - Hillsborough County Public Works is taking steps to alleviate flooding still impacting the Shangri-La neighborhood in Seffner after Hurricane Milton. Record rainfall in the area caused Lake Shangri-La to spill into backyards and streets.

Neighbors said the water continued to rise well into last week.

Walter Erni and his wife witnessed alligators and water snakes creep up to their lanai.

"It was a little bit scary because [seeing the alligator] was at nighttime. I'm out here with a headlight on, and I'm looking down and there's mama. She's pretty big, she's about 10-12 feet," he said.

Erni, who has lived in the community for 35 years, said he saw the County taking proactive measures ahead of Hurricane Milton.

"The County came out with a pump, pumped for like a day and then pulled it, because they were worried about it getting destroyed," he said." After that, it was waist deep at the pump station."

Josh Bellotti of Hillsborough County Public Works said nothing could have prepared the area for what Milton brought to the community.

"Hurricane Milton was between a 200- and 500-year event in terms of rainfall. Fifteen inches across many areas of the county," he explained.

It wasn't until last weekend that crews could bring those pumps back out.

"We've just now been able to start initiating that pumping over the weekend, because we saw downstream conditions that were allowing us to do that," he said.

Erni said there's been a noticeable difference since the pumps came back out.

"It is going down about six inches a day," he said.

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