{"id":200306,"date":"2025-09-04T19:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T19:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/200306\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T19:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T19:20:09","slug":"southside-residents-tired-of-dealing-with-perpetual-street-flooding-despite-no-sign-of-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/200306\/","title":{"rendered":"Southside residents tired of dealing with perpetual street flooding despite no sign of rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Southside residents credited road engineering issues as the reason that they have been dealing with flooding issues for over 10 years \u2014 even when there are no signs of rain or storms.<\/p>\n

Residents along Helm Drive, which is located behind Julington Creek, in the Del Rio neighborhood, have dealt with water constantly filling the street and receding for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want a waterfront, but not waterfront,\u201d Bart Byrd said.<\/p>\n

The flooding, which reaches calf-height on dry days, has transformed daily life for residents. One neighbor constructed a deck just to access their home, while others struggle with basic services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won\u2019t pick up our trash. We have to actually carry the cans through the water up to dry land if you want to get your trash,\u201d said Carmen Woods, who moved to the neighborhood months ago. \u201cThe mail has stopped. She won\u2019t come at all. Packages won\u2019t be delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byrd pointed to road construction as the source of their troubles.<\/p>\n

Southside residents living along Helm Drive are sick of dealing with constant flooding on the road despite little rain (WJXT)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never had this issue,\u201d Byrd said. \u201cWhen they came in and paved, the engineers did not do the excavation correctly and lowered the road down below river level. And then they come in and put in culverts that are below river level, and it\u2019s bringing all the water from the river or any overflow into our street and driveways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byrd also worried that the standing water posed significant health risks to residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the runoff from all the septic systems that are mingling with this water, and it stands here stagnant, creating mosquito growth, other health hazards for our animals, and for young children,\u201d Byrd explained.<\/p>\n

The persistent flooding has affected property values and sales in the neighborhood. One resident, Christa, recently removed her house from the market due to the conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t have anybody come in and see,\u201d she said, with Byrd adding, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to have an open house when you have to boat in.\u201d<\/p>\n

While residents acknowledged living in a flood zone, they emphasized this isn\u2019t typical coastal flooding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we\u2019re in a flood zone. We know we\u2019re in an evacuation zone. Our house is on stilts, so there are things that we knew, purchasing a home on the water,\u201d Woods said. \u201cBut this isn\u2019t related to a storm. If this were from a hurricane, we wouldn\u2019t be doing this story.\u201d<\/p>\n

News4JAX reached out to the city about this ongoing situation. We did not immediately hear back.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Southside residents credited road engineering issues as the reason that they have been dealing with…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":200307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,110880,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-200306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-julington-creek","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115147651937267365","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}