COCOA, Fla. – An overflowing retention pond is being blamed by neighbors for flooding a community of more than 100 mobile homes.
Some people living at the Westgate Mobile Home Park just west of I-95 said the ground is so wet after a rainy day that their homes are sinking.
“It’s been an ongoing problem since we’ve been here,” Virginia Martin told Cocoa Community Correspondent James Sparvero.
“This area will be flooded,” the resident said, pointing to her front yard. “Before they started digging the ditch on through, it would be flooded all the way up the street, there.”
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When asked about the flooding, FDOT said workers cleared the ditch running along the pond.
Without it being blocked by debris, FDOT said the system’s working how it should, but residents like Martin, who lives in one of the closest homes to the pond, are still worried anytime it rains.
Some neighbors were also concerned when the big equipment was at work that the vehicles could hit a gas line.
“I don’t want us to go boom,” Martin said.
People also told Sparvero that FDOT hit a water line, but when asked about that, FDOT said that while it did hit a pipe, it wasn’t for water.
FDOT couldn’t say exactly what the pipe was for, but did say officials are looking at options for how they can make possible improvements.
For now, FDOT said it has no indication the pond is impacting the park.
“They need to trench it better,” Martin said. “The water’s coming this way, but it has no place to go down here. It needs to go that way.”
FDOT said the retention pond was built in 2007 when I-95 was widened.