To Barbara Uj of Mims, who has watched her neighbor Brandon Simmons make dozens of trips over floodwater to transport people and cars with his truck and trailer, “a redneck neighbor is worth 10,000 PhDs.”
Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ian, those in Lake Harney Woods, which sits beside Lake Harney on the border of Volusia and Seminole counties, remained isolated, with record floodwaters blocking the only roads into their neighborhood: State Road 46 and Morgan Alderman Road.
Water levels along parts of SR 46 rose to 12 feet deep, according to National Weather Service reports, and they are slowly receding by the inch daily.
This neighborhood has about 200 homes which are all around 5 acres of land. Uj said that many of her neighbors are living paycheck to paycheck, and have not been able to get to work in over a week. She’s also seen neighbors evacuating flooded homes and their front yards becoming places to anchor canoes.
The residents in this neighborhood, who often communicate through their Facebook group of 254 members, have gotten creative to survive the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
Simmons has been using a car trailer on the back of his lifted truck to transport people and their cars to the other side of the flooding. He said that every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. since the hurricane hit on Sept 29, he has been towing people to the other side for nothing in return.
He also stationed a dump trailer in front of the volunteer fire station in their community so that people could have a place to throw away garbage until trash pickups resume.
Residents of Lake Harney Woods said they’re concerned for their children who have been out of school for over a week. Uj said she had to make the decision to send her son over the floodwater in a canoe to stay with her inlaws so they can take him to school.
“I can’t wait to get my son back. I miss him,” Uj said.
Brandon’s wife Cirstin Simmons expressed her frustration with living in an unincorporated community on the border of Volusia and Seminole counties and how they have felt “forgotten.” She said it forced them to be resourceful and figure it out as a community. The Simmons’ two sons have been stuck at home, unable to go to school, like many of their neighbors.
The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said that “deputies have been out there delivering food and water.” However, residents said that over a week later, they started to run out of resources provided.
“Volusia County brought trucks out here, but they gave MRE [Meals ready-to-eat], some water and some dog and cat food and they only said they were gonna come out that one time,” Cirstin Simmons said. “If my husband wasn’t bringing these people over the water, these people would be stuck out here.”
That was until Oct 9, when volunteers from Horsepower Ranch, an event venue in Geneva, used airboats to transport supplies donated by the United Cajun Navy, a nonprofit rescue-and-relief organization, through floodwaters to residents in Lake Harney Woods. They loaded supplies onto trucks and horse trailers, brought them to the edge of the flooding and loaded the supplies into six airboats and a flat-bottom boat to be transported into the community.
“We don’t want to do it for notoriety, we do it for the community… We’ve always shared this ranch with the community when we have tragedy within the community,” said Scott McElroy, owner of Horsepower Ranch.
McElroy said he witnessed lots of people with “hearts bigger than their bank account” who were hurting and didn’t want to leave their homes or weren’t able to, and he was happy to support them with the help of the United Cajun Navy, Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Highway Patrol.
Uj said that residents have been bringing each other food, water and support and have been coming together in the face of a crisis.
“Don’t lose that sense of community and being nice, not just in the bad times, because you never know who’s gonna save you,” Uj said.
This story is part of a partnership between the Orlando Sentinel and UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication and Media.
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