LAKELAND, Florida. – Residents who live along Bonny Lake say they’ve had enough. Many homes were surrounded by floodwaters for a month. Wednesday evening, the city commission held a special meeting to address residents’ concerns.

One by one, the residents took the podium at Lakes Region The city commission met Wednesday evening with posters and photos showing the devastation in their homes. They believe that all of this could have been avoided if the city had taken appropriate measures before Hurricane Milton hit.

“The lake water was actually starting to build up over the summer, and they gave some statistics tonight to back up some of that. Calls were being made to the city asking what was being done? This is not the way it should be,” said resident Janis Wooten Morsey.

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But residents said their calls went unanswered. Then came Hurricane Milton and several feet of water that sat for weeks. The roads finally became passable a few days ago.

Residents have now learned that the pump they were told was working was in fact clogged with debris and while it was still working, it was pumping at a much slower rate.

Last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers delivered two water pumps to solve this problem. Residents believe that if the city had been proactive in checking their pumps, some of the damage could have been avoided.

“They have not been proactive. We do not believe this pump was checked as they claim. Should they have done so? Yes, absolutely. Could this have been a proactive measure to maintain these levels of water low or at least get over it sooner rather than waiting for Milton to come, and now we’re all underwater,” Morsey said.

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Some families have lost everything and are now living in hotels, still waiting for help from FEMA. Many believe the city needs to do more to help financially struggling residents.

“They need to get us some dumpsters. They need to make us do more cleaning, because our neighbors are throwing stuff in the street. It’s just there, it’s getting nastier and nastier, like we needed something for them to start giving us some kind of support,” Ramírez said.

Moving forward, the city said to help, it will continue pumping until water levels return to normal. They said they would monitor and unload them 24/7. They also said they will continue ongoing discussions with FEMA, the county and SWFWMD to mitigate flooding on Lake Bonny.

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