{"id":51213,"date":"2024-10-22T17:54:40","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T21:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=51213"},"modified":"2024-10-22T17:54:45","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T21:54:45","slug":"flooded-lake-bonny-residents-demand-action-from-lakeland-city-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/10\/22\/flooded-lake-bonny-residents-demand-action-from-lakeland-city-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Flooded Lake Bonny residents demand action from Lakeland City leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Frustrated Lake Bonny residents and Lakeland city leaders agreed on one thing Monday: the pump to release water from their neighborhoods is not working efficiently enough.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cIf it were, the water would be out of the lake,\u201d said Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz during a lengthy back and forth with residents at Monday\u2019s city commission meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been an issue of contention for Lake Bonny residents since before Hurricane Milton hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They said they observed the high lake level this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City officials said they started pumping 5,000 gallons per minute out of Lake Bonny and into Lake Parker on Aug. 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the pump had been running since August 5th, our house would not have flooded,\u201d said David Dickey to the city commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s under my house; it\u2019s pretty much ruined all my floors,\u201d Michael Coker told the commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n

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After significant rainfall from Hurricane Milton, the lake has surrounded homes in mobile home parks and in homes along Lake Bonny Drive, where Michael and Pam Smith live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not my fault to have a second mortgage on my house to rebuild, sir,\u201d Michael Smith told the city commission. \u201cIt\u2019s the people behind these desks and we elect you and we expect you to freakin\u2019 fight for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pam Smith choked up talking about the pride she takes in her home, which she said is now inhabitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have no flood insurance,\u201d she said. \u201cOur homeowners\u2019 is going to deny us because it\u2019s strictly a flood. Where does that leave us? Where does that leave us and many other people on this lake who have invested?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back at the commission meeting, the mayor, city manager Shawn Sherrouse, and city commissioners expressed sympathy and sadness for what the residents are experiencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of them have visited the neighborhoods and the flooded homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI cannot imagine how you feel with your homes devastated, and I am so, so, so sorry. I don\u2019t typically get emotional so forgive me,\u201d Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley said. \u201cWe are sick over this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarley said if it were up to the city of Lakeland, a solution would have been put into place by now.<\/p>\n\n\n

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At the meeting, city leaders said they were working behind the scenes with different entities, including the Polk County government, the Southwest Florida Water Management District and railroad company, CSX.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Stephanie Madden grew tired of not being able to be transparent about talks to find better pumping solutions, including laying pipes over railroad tracks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCSX, they say you can\u2019t go over the tracks so then you have to bore underneath the tracks so then we have to figure out the cost of boring underneath the tracks and officially get a sign off from CSX because they were here before we were and they\u2019re like God whenever you want to do anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Manager Shawn Sherrouse said somebody checks on the current pump four times a day, including over the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debris collection and \u201ccavitation\u201d are impacting the efficiency of the pump, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere it\u2019s being pumped to can only handle so much,\u201d said city commissioner Mike Musick about the pump. \u201cThe other thing is just debris from the storm. We had a hurricane blowing stuff all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mutz said in an interview with News Channel 8 he could not defend the pump because residents\u2019 homes are still surrounded by water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously hindsight\u2019s 20\/20,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do everything we could have and should have done in this and I think over time, the good news is that this will help us fix that need on the longer term basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the city could install two high velocity pumps this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat takes a multi-jurisdictional coordination,\u201d Mutz said. \u201cIf we got that done short term this week, we could really have that lake down in five to eight days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Pam Smith said she believes nothing in her home is recoverable, due to flooding and sewage issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She planned on retiring in the secluded home with a beautiful view of Lake Bonny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDue to their negligence, our home could very possibly be condemned,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frustrated Lake Bonny residents and Lakeland city leaders agreed on one thing Monday: the pump to release water from their neighborhoods is not working efficiently enough. \u201cIf it were, the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":51215,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/download-10-jpeg.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[10126],"class_list":["post-51213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-flooded-lake-bonny-residents-demand-action-from-lakeland-city-leaders"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51217,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51213\/revisions\/51217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}