Flooding In Downtown Sanford

After Tropical Storm Fay dumped huge amounts of rain over Florida, there was lots of flooding. Little lakes in city parks overflowed to very high levels, so you can imagine how high a large body of water overflowed. For example, along the St. Johns River. The flooding was seems to be the worst where the river opens up into Lake Monroe. These pictures were taken on September 1, 2008 in Downtown Sanford along the shore of the lake:









Wood Storks were exploring their new watery shoreline.


The road leading into the Sanford Marina was completely underwater. That didn't seem to stop people from driving to the restaurants at the end of the road or riding bicycles to their favorite fishing spots.









There was a news truck there covering the flooding.

At the time that these pictures were taken, the St. Johns River still hadn't crested. It would still be another week before the river reached it's highest point and the water would start to recede.

Flooding @ Cranes Roost Park

Cranes Roost Park is located in Altamonte Springs, FL, right next to the Altamonte Mall. The park has recently been incorporated into the Uptown Altamonte complex and had a big overhaul and the park saw many improvements. One thing that wasn't fixed was the drainage problems on the central lake that the park is built around.

After the massive amounts of rain that was dropped from Tropical Storm Fay passing over the area, the lake in Cranes Roost Park rose to levels I have never seen. In the past, the lake has flooded, but I've never seen it flood this high. Here are some pictures of the flooding taken on September 1, 2008.





The two bridges that normally provide a trip above the surface of the lake were no longer usable. When Cranes Roost Park has flooded in the past, these bridges do get slightly submerged. I've never seen other sections of the park go under though.

The stage and amphitheater was perhaps where it was easiest to see how high the water actually was. Luckily, the stage floats, but I wonder what happens if the water rises above the pylons anchoring the sides of the stage in place?

As for the bleachers in the amphitheater, there are at least two rows of seats below the surface of the water.





Tropical Storm Fay has stopped pouring liquid into Cranes Roost Park, but it does tend to rain often in Florida, so it may be a while before the water recedes...