"It has gotten worse": Slow draining water system frustrates people in NW Cape

Sunday's thunderstorms left several people stranded as roads in Cape Coral turned into temporary rivers, blocking vehicles and making travel nearly impossible.

"It has gotten worse throughout time," said Alex Hernandez, a resident living near Tropicana Parkway.

Fox 4's Bella Line spoke with people who live near Tropicana Parkway, an area where Line was stuck in on Sunday, and saw firsthand how quickly the water backed up. Watch here:

"This road in particular, I've been living here for the last 12 years and it hasn't been that bad, but I would say in the last two rainy seasons already I have seen a significant amount of floods in this area," said Hernandez.

"Not even when we had the hurricane, it didn't happen like that, but it was really bad yesterday," Myrna Rivera, a resident near Tropicana Parkway.

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Fox 4's Certified Meteorologist Katie Walls says the area received 5 inches of rain in total this weekend.

"The water was coming waves and the flooding was really really bad for the whole intersection was bad yesterday," said Rivera.

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Neighbors have started coming up with reasons they think the water isn't draining.

"I'm guessing because of the amount of construction and so many things I got laid off along the side of a construction site is causing the water to kind of just settle there and just create almost a pond," said Hernandez.

Fox 4 reached out to the city to find out why much of Northwest Cape Coral has flooding issues and the city says the stormwater system is designed to prevent rapid draining to prevent pollution in our canals. They note when the canals fill up, so do the inlets. That means that extra water has to go somewhere... like our roads.

Even with that reality, they say you should report excessive flooding to the city's Call Center at 3-1-1.