DAYTONA BEACH — As if to remind the roughly 70 people inside the Dickerson Center gym Tuesday afternoon why they had gathered there, heavy rain pelted the community center located in the city's most flood-prone area.
Midtown, Fairway Estates and downtown residents and business owners came together for an update on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Daytona Beach flood risk management feasibility study .
It was also a chance for the people who live and work in the historic urban core area to ask questions about the study that's taking an exhaustive look at a low-lying pocket of the city that can fill with as much as five feet of standing water during major storms.
The roughly 2-square-mile study area is bordered by Nova Road, Orange Avenue, Ridgewood Avenue and Beville Road. The area is home to about 8,000 residents and 2,800 structures including houses, apartment complexes, businesses, churches and government buildings.
Many of the residents are especially vulnerable to the flooding that has deluged their neighborhoods over and over for the past century.
They have a per capita income of $17,514, less than half live in owner-occupied homes, 25% have disabilities, 13% have less than a high school education, 69% are minorities and 4% have limited English speaking abilities.
The study is hoped to lead to solutions that could be implemented in about five years and largely funded by the federal government. But some residents are already growing weary waiting for things to improve.
"It's just a never-ending story," said Derrick Harris, whose Orange Avenue barber shop has been flooded with a few feet of water multiple times over the past 34 years.
What happens next
Several Army Corps of Engineers officials assigned to the Daytona flood study gave a 30-minute presentation at Tuesday's meeting.
They explained that they're investigating how water flows into the study area, how it drains and exits, and how it sometimes gets stuck in the Midtown and Fairway Estates neighborhoods. They also discussed their analysis of nearly two dozen possible ways to reduce chronic flooding in the area that sits below the official flood elevation.
They've been exploring possible solutions that could include levees, floodwalls, reservoirs, pumps and berms. They're studying raising structures off the ground, creating underground retention, deepening channels, increasing backflow prevention, and establishing a flood warning system.
They're also considering buying out property, raising berms and adding a surge barrier.
While considering what would be most effective to reduce flooding, they also have to be mindful of what different solutions would cost.
They've eliminated three ideas so far, including a higher road elevation that could push water around and transfer the risk to other areas. And they've decided against underground water storage and deep well injection because of the high groundwater table in the area.
They'll winnow down the list much further before they make their final recommendations in 18 months.
They'll continue to evaluate the alternatives over the next year, and by June of 2025 the study team will agree on a tentatively selected plan.
By December 2025, the Army Corps will endorse a recommended plan for flood mitigation in the two neighborhoods. In June of 2026, two years from now, the plan will be ready for state and agency review.
The study's final step will come in January of 2027, when the final report is due. The U.S. Army Corps' headquarters will develop what they call the chief's report, which will recommend a specific project presented for congressional authorization.
Why Midtown and Fairway Estates flood
The three-year study, which began about five months ago, is being headed up by a team of engineers, biologists, geologists, hydrologists, surveyors, archaeologists, economists, planners, real estate specialists and an environmental justice coordinator. Daytona Beach city government employees are also involved in the study.
The Army Corps employees are based in Jacksonville, Savannah and Mobile. Numerous state and federal agencies will also be consulted.
The federal government is fully funding the $3 million study. The hope is the study will convince Congress to approve and help pay for a project that could greatly alleviate the catastrophic flooding plaguing Midtown and Fairway Estates.
The low-lying, bowl-shaped topography of the area has made the southern end of Midtown and the Fairway Estates neighborhood vulnerable to water rising.
The two neighborhoods are on a low point between Clyde Morris Boulevard and Ridgewood Avenue, and they sit low relative to the Halifax River.
The area drains to the Nova Canal and then the Halifax River, but that drainage system doesn't work during large rainfall events when the river is high. The result is water settling in low-lying areas adjacent to the canal.
Flooding in those two low-elevation neighborhoods can also be exacerbated by high tide raising the river and blocking rainwater trying to flow into the Halifax.
Another challenge is that the Nova Canal's outfalls to the river are located within Holly Hill and South Daytona. And the Navy Canal, which runs from Daytona Beach's airport to Nova Road, discharges into the Nova Canal around the Midtown area, which adds to the flooding.
It adds up to a problem that could cost between $100 million and $200 million to fix.
If Congress authorizes a U.S. Army Corps flooding project in Daytona Beach at some point, getting funding for that will be an additional hurdle. If all of that falls into place, the federal government would probably pick up 65% of costs, and the city would have to come up with the remaining 35%.
'Is my house going to flood?'
There will be more study updates during Daytona Beach City Commission meetings on Sept. 18; Dec. 18; March 12, 2025; and June 11, 2025.
Fairway Estates resident Catherine Pante came to this week's update with questions and frustration. Her parents built a house in Fairway Estates near Beville Road 50 years ago, and Pante said there was never any flooding around her home when she was growing up.
Even 20 years ago, she maintains the area around her house didn't flood.
"Fairway Estates didn't start to hold water until 2009," Pante said. "I flooded for the first time (in 2022) in Hurricane Ian."
Tackling Daytona flooding trouble spot: Major step taken toward solving Midtown Daytona's flooding problems with study approval
She sees the problem as a combination of aging infrastructure and continued development that has created too much impervious land that can't absorb rainwater.
"It's old infrastructure, and they just keep building," Pante said.
Midtown resident Pierre Louis called Tuesday's update "good."
"But at the end of the day, people just want to know is my house going to flood or not?" Louis said. "People are just really more tired than anything else."
You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Estimate puts cost of fixing Midtown, Fairway Estates flooding between $100-$200 million
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