Flooding

The American Red Cross has sent a legion of volunteers and vehicles to flooded Louisiana, for what the organization calls the worst natural disaster in the U.S. since 2012’s SuperStorm Sandy.  

“All across south Louisiana, and it has presented tremendous challenges to everyone. But I’m very proud of the effort that we’re making,” said Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards after a helicopter tour of the hardest-hit areas. 

Small businesses affected by last spring’s storms in the Pensacola area have until February 6 to apply for a working capital disaster loan from Uncle Sam.

Also eligible for a loan from the U.S Small Business Administration are small agriculture and aquaculture operations, and most private non-profits. They must have sustained the damage in the severe storms, tornadoes and flooding between April 28 through May 6.

  Manna Food Pantries has taken the next step in finding a new permanent home.

If you stopped by Manna's long time location in Pensacola, you'd see the non-profit operating out of a few construction trailers in front of its warehouse. But that may soon be changing. De De Flounlacker, the Executive director of Manna Food Pantries, says the food bank has closed on a 4.5 acre parcel of land  at the site of the former Escambia County School District textbook depot between N. Hayne Street and N. Tarragona Street in Pensacola.

Operation Photo Rescue is saving memories, one disaster at a time. And, the organization is now considering whether to come to the Pensacola area in the wake of the extensive damage from the local flooding event in April.

  Three months after losing its building and most of its inventory to April's flood Manna Food Pantries is set to resume service later this month.  Dee Dee Flounlacker, Executive Director of Manna Food Pantries announced that service will resume on Monday, July 28 just a few days short of the three month anniversary of the flood.

Time is running out for residents in northwest Florida affected by storms and flooding to apply for disaster assistance with the Federal Emergency Management Agency: tshe deadline to register is Monday, July 7.

Survivors in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Jackson, Okaloosa and Walton counties are eligible to apply for disaster assistance that may include money to help pay for temporary housing, essential home repairs or other serious disaster-related expenses.

Manna Food Pantries and the Escambia County School District are working on a deal to move the non-profit onto the site of an abandoned school. The property is the site of the former J. Lee Pickens School on Hayne Street in Pensacola which has been vacant for 20 years. Dee Dee Flounlacker, the Executive Director of Manna Food Pantries says the deal is just for the land, not the building which was demolished last month.

When it comes to shaping cities and neighborhoods, since the late 1940s, urban developers have catered developments to the invention and expansion of the automobile. Cars allowed people to spread out more and paved the way for urban sprawl. This concept of spreading everything out, in turn can result in “pressure that pushes us into more marginal areas for development than we would otherwise.” That’s according to Christian Wagley, a local environmental advocate and green building consultant. What happens when development occurs in those “more marginal areas”?

The Florida Small Business Emergency Bridge Loan Program has been activated by Gov. Rick Scott. The program is a source of practical cash flow to small businesses in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton Counties, which were affected by last month’s severe flooding.

Escambia County building inspectors report about 160 businesses in unincorporated areas have flood damage, 83 of which are major. Businesses in Pensacola have $6 million in damages, while 23 businesses in Santa Rosa County were hit.

But just what is a bridge loan?

A national charitable group is making a $10,000 donation to a local non-profit and you get to help decide which one gets the windfall. 

Minor League Charities, a national cooperative effort of all minor league baseball teams across the country, is donating the money through the Pensacola Blue Wahoos.  Jonathon Griffith, Executive Vice President of the team said they decided to leave the choice of which non-profit gets the finds to the team's fans.

Representatives from the Florida State Emergency Response Team conducted a meeting Tuesday for public assistance applicants where SERT and FEMA reps outlined the available assistance and the eligibility standards.

Steve Hyatt, the Public Assistance Officer for the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s Bureau of Recovery, spoke at the Escambia County Emergency Operations Center. There to listen were people representing the local governments and various non-profits that took hits in last month’s storms and flooding.

Gulf Breeze City Manager Buz Eddy and other officials in the city were a little nervous this week. Thunderstorms were predicted to dumps several inches of rain onto an already saturated community. Eddy said "we were on the edge of our seats for awhile, but it wasn't enough to cause any problems".  Still, a high water table and some areas still with standing water had the city preparing for the worst. And preparation is a hot topic in Gulf Breeze. The city has announced the formation of a storm water task force.  

Dump trucks are making regular trips to and from landfills in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties, discarding massive amounts of storm-related debris collected from area residences.

Emerald Coast Utilities Authority has about 20 crews out picking up the storm debris. As the flood waters in many areas began to recede, ECUA began their work on May 4 in the Bristol Park subdivision.

When Governor Rick Scott came to Pensacola he spoke with many community and business leaders about recovering from last week's flood. He also spend a lot of time talking to Dee Dee Flounlacker, the Executive Director of Manna Food Pantries, the region's primary food bank.

Some local nonprofit organizations suffered losses during the recent storm and flooding. Among those is Open Books, a nonprofit bookstore and home to the prison books project. Steven Kell is a volunteer at Open Books who has been involved with the cleanup since last Wednesday.

Watching last week’s great flood from out of town was unsettling. We had been in Pittsburg for a nephew’s college graduation, and on that Tuesday night found ourselves on a plane circling Pensacola.

The pilot said heavy rain over the airport was delaying our arrival, but don’t worry, we have plenty of fuel. 20 minutes later he said there was still a nasty storm cell over the airport and he was waiting for it to move.

Santa Rosa County

Damage assessments from last week’s storms continue to roll in. Looking at private property, Escambia is now reporting more than 3,200 homes damaged, with 13 destroyed; 117 businesses were damaged. Okaloosa is reporting a $3.3 million in damage to at least 285 homes. For more on Santa Rosa County, WUWF’s Sandra Averhart spoke to Property Appraiser Greg Brown.

Local officials are trying to get ahead of a potential boom of mosquitoes in the next week or so.

In this week's Economic Report, Dr. Rick Harper discusses the recent flood event and the expected high cost of repairing the damage to roads, infrastructure and other government and private property, likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars in each case.

The unexpectedly large volume of rainfall, up to 27 inches in some areas, brought floodwaters to some areas that had never flooded before. That means many homeowners will be forced to foot the bill for repairs themselves.