For areas along the Peace River and South Polk, 'it was a little worse than Irma'

BARTOW — Brandy Sheffield stood in the parking lot of a small park along State Road 60 Thursday afternoon and gazed at the brown and turbid water around her.

Sheffield could barely discern the top rail of a boat launch at what is usually the bank of the Peace River, more than 100 feet away. The sidewalk leading to the dock had been swallowed by the river as it rose and swelled amid an infusion of water from the rains of Hurricane Ian, which had passed through the area overnight.

“I’ve never seen it this high,” said Sheffield, a Bartow resident.

She watched as a man waded into the water with a cast net a few steps from the parking lot, With his first cast, the man snared a pair of tilapia, one of which appeared to weigh about three pounds.

While the fisherman, who declined to give his name, was taking advantage of the unusual conditions, flooding caused by Hurricane Ian caused concern for many from Bartow south in Polk County. The Peace River spread far outside its typical course in Fort Meade, pushing water into pastures and creating a moat around the One Accord Outreach International Church on U.S. 98.

A pool of water at least six inches deep covered the road just west of the bridge. Vehicles going in both directions sprayed wakes as they drove through the large puddle. Fort Meade City Manager Jan Bagnall said the narrow bridge had been blocked by debris Thursday morning, and it remained closed until crews cleared the blockage.

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East of the church, farther from the river, water engulfed a yard along U.S. 98, rising to the chassis levels of two parked vehicles. The flooding extended past the entrance to the Fort Meade Outdoor Recreation Area.

Some of the worst damage from the hurricane could be seen at the Hammock Lake Estates mobile home park on U.S. 17 in Fort Meade. A white trailer with sky-blue trim had been thrust about four feet above its pad, dislodged by the roots of a toppled oak tree.

A neighbor said the owners of the trailer are part-time residents who weren’t present during the storm. As of Friday morning, no injuries had been reported among residents of the park.

Elsewhere in Hammock Lake Estates, an Imperial recreational vehicle had been pushed off its lot and tilted precariously. A trailer that, like many in the park, appeared to be at least 50 years old, was punctured by a tree trunk, and some of its outer panels had been blown off to reveal shredded pink insulation material.

Power lines drooped to ground level in the back section of the park. Just outside the front of one mobile home, a black cat sat amid a tangle of wires and inches away from a fallen ceramic power pole insulator.

Rick and Angie Morris endured the hurricane with minimal damage to their mobile home. Like many in the park, they had a portable generator running Thursday afternoon. Rick Morris said the couple waited out the storm in their home, as they had during Hurricane Irma in 2017.

“It was a little worse than Irma,” said Morris, 70, as the generator whirred beside him. “I heard my neighbor’s roof come off and the wind blowing like crazy. It was driving rain through all of these windows.”

“It sounded like a tornado,” Angie Morris added.

Morris said some residents of Hammock Lake Estates evacuated before the hurricane.

“Three or four pulled out (Wednesday),” Morris said. “When the (Fort Meade) Fire Department went through there and was announcing, ‘Flood waters, high winds, evacuate,’ a lot of people took them seriously.”

Morris said he and his wife endured eight days without power following Hurricane Irma, and he seemed prepared for another long wait for service to be restored.

“It’s Florida,” he said. “What do you expect?”

In Bartow, a massive oak tree fell across East Church Street, wrecking a pair of power poles beside the Polk County Property Appraiser’s Office. Several electrical lines lay on the sidewalk and parking lot Thursday afternoon as crews arrived and began working to remove the tree.

Residents worked in their yards throughout the city’s neighborhoods to clear storm debris. Renay Lee raked leaves and small branches at the home of a cousin near Restwood Street with helped from a teenage neighbor, Justin Knight. A man stood on the roof of the house, using a leaf blower to clear off the storm detritus.

A group of residents gathered on Bennett Court, where a sizeable oak tree had fallen across two yards. Frank Garcia wielded a chainsaw Thursday afternoon to cut off branches for removal, but it was clear his equipment would not be sufficient to handle the tree’s hulking trunk.

The storm interfered with signals to railroad crossings, and many fixtures remained stuck Thursday afternoon with their arms blocking roads and their lights flashing. Along SR 17 south of Bartow, a CSX truck drove along tracks pushing a wheel in an apparent test for damage.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Hurricane Ian: South Polk Peace River overflowed, wind damage severe