EDGEWATER, Fla. – A new Edgewater homeowner was welcomed into the neighborhood the wrong way, after a tow truck plowed into a guard rail that blocks his home.
Homeowner Bruce Myers said the slippery roads from the overflowing drainage ditches were to blame.
"When I bought the house, I was thinking it could happen, but what are the odds?" Bruce Myers said.
Myers said if the guardrail wasn't there, the truck would have hit his 4-year-old son's bedroom, Tuesday morning.
"Yeah we're scared. My wife is really worried, I'm really worried. Obviously, when you buy a new house, the last thing you want to do is three weeks later, have a truck sitting in your yard and neighbors telling you, this is the third time it's happened," he said.
The truck driver told Myers that he tapped the brakes on the water-covered road, but the truck never stopped.
"The whole neighborhood has said the drainage has constantly backed up. I looked at it myself. There's maybe a third of an inch above the pipe where the soil hasn't grown up. There's actually tadpoles that are living in the drainage ditch. So, the water's been there for a while," he said.
Myers called the city of Edgewater about the issue. News 6 also contacted the city who responded via email:
"A review of the past five years revealed a total of two crashes into the guard rail at Silver Palm and 30th Street. The first was during dry conditions and the driver admitted to being fatigued. The second occurred on June 13, 2018 at 12:15 a.m. A review of the Police Department body-worn camera footage revealed there was no standing water on the roadway. The driver advised the investigating officer that he saw the stop sign but when he hit the brakes they went to the floor. The crash appears to be caused by driver error and equipment malfunction on a wet roadway that was not flooded.
Our community has experienced over 18 inches of rain since the beginning of May which may cause standing water on roadways or in ditches from time to time. City manager Tracey Barlow spoke with the concerned property owner this morning. He also directed city staff to replace the rumble strips on 30th Street and to repair and replace of the damaged guardrail."
However, Myers believes more needs to be done.
"I mean, if people are slipping and sliding out here, then obviously we got to do something," he said.