Page 121 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

Over the years, northeast winds occasionally surprise Jacksonville Beach residents
with torrential downpours of 5 to 10 inches, while people living away from the coast
have little or no rain and are unaware of their neighbors’ flooded streets. Flood waters
at the beaches often cannot drain through sewers into the ocean because the streets
were lower than the wind-driven higher tides of the ocean. The only way water could
drain was towards the Intracoastal Waterway. In 1985 on Labor Day weekend, parts of
northeast Florida along the St. Johns River were drenched with a 20-inch rainfall. On
October 10, 1989, low lying St. Augustine had up to 16 inches of rain in about 5 hours.

In 1989, three days after hurricane Hugo bypassed Florida and struck Charleston, SC, a
front stalled over Jacksonville and dumped torrents of rain on downtown Jacksonville.
A total of 11.40 inches fell in 5 hours. There were two deaths caused by persons who
mistook water-filled ditches for streets and drove right into them. In 1991, many
neighborhoods in Mandarin and Orange Park were flooded from 12 to 15 inches of rain
around October 1. One Beauclerc street in Pickwick Park that normally didn’t flood
had water deep enough to float a boat because drainage ditches were clogged with
debris that even contained a discarded mattress.

In August 2008, Tropical Storm Fay came up the Florida peninsula and stalled over the
east central Florida near Cape Canaveral, dumping 27.65 inches of rainfall on
Melbourne. The upstream waters of the St. Johns River around Sanford received up to
18 inches of rain. Northeast Florida runoffs caused the St. Johns River to expand from
its banks to virtually all low ground areas from central Florida to Jacksonville. Since
the river flows northward, the water drainage to the Atlantic Ocean is constricted by the
narrow gap between the river banks in the downtown Jacksonville. Our city was
originally called Cowford because cattle were herded across the river at this point.
Much of the northeast Florida counties also were flooded from 12 inches of rain.

Four years later, on June 24-27, 2012 Tropical Storm Debby stalled over the northeast
Gulf of Mexico south of Tallahassee. While the storm’s center swirled over the steamy
Gulf waters for two and a half days, shearing upper-level westerly winds ripped
water-laden clouds over northeast Florida causing 15 to 20 inches of rain. Rivers such
as the Suwannee, St. Marys at Macclenny and Black Creek in Middleburg crested near
all-time record levels; in fact, the St. Marys crested at a record 24.4 feet (12.4 feet
above flood stage) on June 28. Jacksonville’s peak wind from Debby, downgraded to a
Depression, was only 35 mph.
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