TAVARES, Fla. – What started as a normal Saturday night of live music at a popular Tavares waterfront restaurant changed in a matter of minutes when a storm sent floodwaters rushing through the Lake Harris Hideaway in Tavares.
“Just a regular Saturday. Music, all that good stuff. Our second band came on, Maiden Voyage. Rainstorm came and didn’t stop,” said Jason Kelyman, the owner of the Lake Harris Hideaway. “And next thing you know, we were flooded out.”
Recommended Videos
Kelyman said he wasn’t even inside when the worst of it hit. He and a friend were next door tending to boats for customers when the storm intensified.
“Me and my buddy were next door dealing with some boats for some customers, and we walked back over and just mayhem,” he said.
Kelyman described what happened and what the restaurant’s security cameras captured through their surveillance system.
“It came over kind of like a usual normal Florida thunderstorm. And then it just turned black. Just total blackness. Power went out, a lot of rain and a lot of water,” he said. “It happened — 3 - 5 minutes. It came in, and it was gone. Like nothing ever happened.”
The video shows the storm blowing through, the power flickering off, and water rushing across the floor. Kelyman said strong winds flipped over picnic tables too.
“Everything that’s on the floor is total loss. Besides our tables and chairs. You know, the band did a good job getting all their stuff up,” Kelyman said.
As the water rose, restaurant managers — including Kelyman’s wife — worked quickly to evacuate guests.
Kelyman said other employees helped elderly patrons reach their cars just before conditions fully deteriorated.
“Not even a minute after they left, that’s when everything broke out. They would not have gotten out of there in that amount of time,” Kelyman said.
Kelyman said nothing like this has ever happened at the restaurant — not even during hurricanes.
“Most we’ve had is a little small puddle in the corner of the parking lot. This here was a ton of water,” he said.
News 6 meteorologist Julie Broughton said some areas of northern Lake County picked up between 2 - 5 inches of rain Saturday.
“The ground is very dry, and you get all that rain coming down — some of the rainfall estimates, like I said, two to close to five inches of rain in some parts of that area — and there’s just no place for it to go,” Broughton said.
Despite the weekend weather, all of Central Florida remains under drought conditions. Broughton said the region is transitioning into rainy season, which typically brings daily sea breeze-driven showers and storms.
“We need several inches of rain to get out of the drought, but we don’t need it all at once,” she said.
Looking ahead, Broughton said a large plume of tropical moisture is expected to move into the region later in the week, raising the possibility of more heavy rain — and more flooding.
“We’re watching a broad area of low pressure that will ride to the north, and that will send a lot of rain our way. And so that means that we could be talking about some more flooding as we enter the weekend,” Broughton said.
“The rainfall, of course, beneficial, but in flood prone areas that could cause some problems.”
Despite the damage, Lake Harris Hideaway was back open by Monday, in time for the Memorial Day weekend crowd. Kelyman credited his staff and the surrounding community for making that turnaround possible.
“We’re very resilient. We have the whole entire community behind us. We do a lot in the community, and we worked through the night. In the morning, community members showed up with brooms in their hands, garbage bags — they were already picking stuff up and helping us out,” he said.
“Every day is Veterans Day. Every day is Memorial Day here. So, we had to be open for the weekend.”
The phones, he said, haven’t stopped ringing.
“We posted it, ‘Hey, we’re open, we’re ready to go, business as usual,’” Kelyman said.