LAKELAND – The shirtless man bent over in his dining room Wednesday afternoon and ripped a piece of drywall from the studs.
The destroyed material soon ended up on top of a growing pile in front of the man’s home on Pineville Lane in northwest Lakeland.
Many Pineville residents have taken on the same task as the 64-year-old man, who gave only his first name, Tim. Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Milton struck, the one-street neighborhood was still showing the lasting effects of the storm, which dumped as much as 18 inches of rain in parts of Polk County.
While piles of tree debris are commonly found elsewhere in Polk, Pineville Lane was teeming with piles of discarded household items: washers and dryers, headboards, mattresses, pillows, couches, TVs, speakers, clothing, coolers, dressers, doors and children’s toys. And countless pounds of drywall, removed from the lower portions of the interior walls.
A smell of mold permeated the neighborhood.
Itchepackesassa Creek runs parallel to Pineville Lane and passes within about 50 feet of some duplexes and houses on the west side of the road. The neighborhood, just south of Swindell Road, has flooded before, but residents say the water has never risen as high as it did during and shortly after Milton moved directly across Polk County.
Orlando Toledo, whose home is on a high spot on the west side of the road, said he narrowly escaped water entry. On Wednesday, Toledo pointed to a shutter next to the window of a nearby brick-covered house, where a water stain remained visible more than four feet above grade.
The glass panes of the window were missing. Toledo said fire crews broke out the windows to transport a woman with disabilities while water still surrounded the house.
“My friend in the brick apartment lost everything – everything, everything,” Toledo said.
A black Chrysler sedan sat in the backyard. During the height of the flood, the car disappeared beneath the floodwaters, which rose higher than a nearby fence line, Toledo said.
Other apparently destroyed cars sat in driveways. Some had already been towed away, residents said.
‘The worst thing I’ve seen’
A few doors down from Toledo, Tim gave a reporter a quick tour of his 1,500-square-foot home. He and his friends had ripped out the drywall as high as three feet above the floor to make sure all the water-damaged material was gone.
“It got really wet,” he said.
Tim said he has lived on Pineville Lane since 2005. The household includes his wife and son, and his grandchildren often visit. He said the area has flooded several times after storms, but the only time water entered his home was during Hurricane Irma in 2017.
Tim pointed to a white car in his driveway and said it was completely damaged by water damage from Milton.
He said he thought his home insurance covered flooding, but discovered after the storm that it did not. He said FEMA representatives had visited the neighborhood but turned down some requests for help, including his own.
A few doors north, a family of four, including one child, had returned to their duplex after fleeing to a hotel after Hurricane Milton. One resident, a 22-year-old man who declined to give his name, said the lower parts of the interior walls had been removed.
As Mexican norteña music played from inside, the man demonstrated the depth the water had reached in the house by raising his hand up to his waist. Along the front curb was a pile of his family’s destroyed belongings: a bed, a couch, and a few countertops.
The flooding also affected the man’s 2019 Toyota Corolla, which had already been towed away. He recalled seeing smoke from other water-soaked vehicles as their owners tried to start them.
‘Slow motion flood’ Residents in the Seward Lake area say the water is still rising a week after Milton
“It happens most of the time — not every hurricane, but maybe every four years,” he said of the flooding. ‘There can be a meter of water, but not that high. This is the worst thing I have ever seen.”
The man, whose family rents the house, said the owners had been there and taken photos to assess the damage. He said most of his neighbors also rent, and many had indicated they planned to return after the homes were restored.
He said his insurance won’t cover the damage.
“I had to dip into my savings a little bit,” he said. “Other than that, I just have to rebuild my savings.”
Removing mold threats
Closer to Swindell Road, Johnny Jenner wore a heavy mask with filters as he toiled in an empty duplex cutting and removing damaged drywall. Jenner said the property’s owner, Hosanna Real Estate Services, had just completed work on the house, including the installation of new cabinets, before Hurricane Milton arrived and pushed about two feet of water into the duplex unit.
“Someone had just moved in, so we fixed it up,” he said. “Then the storm came here. The storm had other plans.”
Jenner said he lives near Lake Bonny, where residents have suffered unprecedented flooding, but he said his home escaped any water intrusion.
While working at the duplex on Pineville Lane, Jenner got to know some of the residents. He said he had heard about the fate of a family renting a nearby rental property.
“Apparently their landlords absolutely refuse to do anything for them,” he said. “They dropped a large tree in their garden. The landlord said they wouldn’t cut it up. He doesn’t do anything inside to help them.’
No one responded to a knock on the duplex unit.
At another apartment on the west side of the road, a two-person crew was restoring a vacant unit. Errick Maise, one of the workers, said the owner had just paid to remodel the kitchen, install new baseboards and plumbing fixtures and paint the interior before the hurricane. All of those improvements had to be removed and replaced, Maise said.
Near Itchepackesassa Creek: Floods are entering homes and covering roads in Northwest Polk
The workers had discovered mold not only in the drywall but also on some wall studs, Maise said. They planned to use a mold-killing spray and let the house air out for a few days before returning.
Evidence that life remains far from normal can be seen elsewhere along Pineville Lane. One duplex had an outdoor dining area set up, and a pot sat on a large grill attached to a propane tank. A container labeled “Emergency Drinking Water,” from the Florida Division of Emergency Management, sat on a metal cabinet outside a home.
A large blue tarp covered the roof of a duplex, near a cluster of cut branches from a fallen pine tree.
A green notice from the Polk County Utilities Division, posted on the door of an apparently vacant unit near Swindell Road, read: “Water service has been shut off.”
A man in a pickup truck drove down the street, loading discarded equipment into the bed. The man, who did not give his name, said he had been collecting destroyed items from around the Lakeland area to sell for scrap.
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared in The Ledger: Pineville Lane residents begin to recover after Milton flood
