MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Some of the worst-flooded areas of Central Florida remained under water Friday damaging homes and in some cases forcing homeowners to use windows as front doors.

---

IMAGES: Top Viewer Flood Photos Top Images
IMAGES: Fay Floods Hospital; Diverts Patients
IMAGES: Canoes - Airboats Used To Flee Floods

---

"The water would rush in (the front door)," victim Charles Jerry said. "It would make it worse that what it was. I was going in and out (of my home) from one of the windows. I had to go out the window."

Jerry was inside his South Melbourne home located off Main Street with his son when the floodwaters began to rise and did not evacuate.

"When (the water) got higher, that is when I started moving all of the clothes and all of the things that I wanted to try to save," Jerry said. "I've been trying to do the best I can with what I had left and what I tried to save. But it has been kind of rough."

Jerry said water filled his home during the constant rain from Fay.

Code enforcement officials put a danger sign on his garage door because of the flooding.

"Thank God I'm still here," Jerry said.

Aerial View Shows Damage

Meanwhile, an aerial tour of Central Florida showed abandoned vehicles submerged on streets, homes under water and entire neighborhoods evacuated.

"I don't see how anybody can really make it (to the back of the Lamplighter Village subdivision) trying to get through these roadways," Local 6 reporter David Sprung said from the Sky 6 helicopter. "I can't even tell you where a roadway is. Because in this area, to me, all it looks like is water surrounding homes. It is completely flooded."

Homeowners in the Lamplighter Village community in Brevard County evacuated when waters began to rise Thursday and officials shut off power to the area.

Gov. Charlie Crist toured Lamplighter Village -- a community of 600 homes near Interstate 95 -- in a swamp buggy on Thursday.

"I couldn't believe all of the water," Crist said.

Crist said the area is the worse hit -- by far, Local 6's Adam Longo reported.

"We've lived through several hurricanes and (I have seen) nothing like this," flood victim Timothy Tucker said.

There is still about four or five feet of standing water in and around Lamplighter homes.

"I saw water in my house and I'm like, 'Oh my God,'" Lamplighter Village resident Wayne Wyckoff said. "Cars were stuck and wreckers were pulling them out and I knew that I was going to lose everything. Everything is flooded. I lost everything."

The National Guard has been the only personnel allowed into the subdivision to help the remaining people still inside their homes.

Also, the Department of Natural Resources said a preliminary estimate of damage to the Brevard County beaches is about $2.6 million.

Rivers Cresting

Rivers in several Central Florida counties are threatening to overflow and flood nearby neighborhoods.

"The St. Johns River is under the gun for flooding," Local 6 meteorologist Eric Wilson said. "(It's) not just today but for the next seven days because 10 inches of rain have fallen (north of the river) and 20 inches of rain have fallen (south of river). It takes days for it to percolate."

Astor was already over flood stage at the St. Johns River and has been forecasted to get even higher.

"Isn't it amazing that something that did not become a hurricane can cause so much damage," Wilson said. "We are talking about rain -- two feet of rain."

How high the rivers rise depends on how much rain falls in the next two days.

"Rivers are getting very close to flood stage in some areas," Local 6 meteorologist Rob Eicher said. "The crest is still several days -- maybe a week or more -- away depending on how much afternoon shower and thunderstorm activity we get in the next couple of days."

In 2004, flooding from rivers flooded posed a problem for several communities.

"If you were anywhere around the area in 2004, you know exactly what we are talking about," Wilson said. "It can be sunny out next week and you are still going to see these (rivers) rise."

Lake Harney was forecast to get close to flood stage in the next few days.

"It's the same in Sanford," Eicher said. "If you remember in 2004, during the hurricanes, we had Lake Monroe came up over the Riverwalk area and we had alligators swimming around in some of the main thoroughfares in downtown Sanford in 2004."

Fay Floods Hospital

Also, rising waters from Tropical Storm Fay flooded a Central Florida hospital's emergency room entrance and forced officials to divert patients away from the facility Thursday night.

"This is definitely something we consider very serious," Florida Hospital Fish Memorial Administrator Joe Johnson said. "We are looking at an 'all hands on deck' kind of thing where we call in extra help. This is not something you see every day."

Rising waters cut off access to the emergency room and filled the entrance.

"Because of the flooding and debris that is clogging our access to the campus we have asked the county to divert patients from coming to us for a while through the ambulance system,' Johnson said.

Johnson said waters from surrounding areas rushed through the hospital campus like rivers and to the building.

Officials were considering moving patients to higher floors to escape the water.

"We want to make sure everything on the lowest floors is protected," Florida Hospital Fish Memorial Administer Joe Johnson said. "We got a lot of supplies and equipment. So, patients can be moved up to higher floors if necessary. But clearly, if there is any danger that is the first thing we will do. Get them out if necessary."

Existing patients were still being treated at the hospital but Johnson said they could be moved if waters continued to rise

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.