Tropical Storm Ian leaves path of destruction in Volusia and Flagler counties

DAYTONA BEACH — As the Rev. Derrick Harris plowed his large pickup truck into the floodwaters of the low-lying Midtown neighborhood Thursday, he was stunned by what he was seeing through his windshield.

The water had risen to more than five feet in some areas of the community east of Nova Road, and people were clinging to the tops of cars. Others were sloshing through shallower sections of the murky water that destroyed homes from Shady Place north to Mason Avenue.

He pulled terrified residents and their pets into his truck, trying not to linger too long and get stuck himself.

"People were literally swimming and crying out for help," said Harris, who has both a church and barber shop in the heart of Midtown. "Everyone was stranded, and they were being taken out by boat. It's really rough."

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As Harris returned to the impoverished urban core neighborhood again Friday to continue helping the desperate residents there, people throughout Volusia and Flagler counties awoke to another day of devastation left in the wake of Tropical Storm Ian.

From coastal Flagler County with its storm surge damage south to deluged areas of New Smyrna Beach that received close to two feet of rain, residents were struggling with floodwater that turned their streets into rivers and wind that tore at roofs, toppled trees and knocked out power.

Power outages were widespread throughout Central Florida. Officials said that as of 1 p.m. Friday 184,000 customers were without power in Volusia County, a drop from the nearly 250,000 Thursday.

More than 25,000 households and businesses in Flagler County had no power Friday.

At least three people died in Volusia County as Ian tore into the area Wednesday evening and slowly carved a destructive path out to the Atlantic Ocean Thursday afternoon.

A 72-year-old Deltona man trying to drain his pool with a hose in the dark late Wednesday night slipped down a steep and slippery embankment and toppled into a canal. A 67-year-old New Smyrna Beach man fell in rising floodwater that had funneled into his home Thursday night, couldn't get up and drowned.

The third death took place in Ormond-by-the-Sea, where a woman in her 60s slipped, fell and was swept away by storm surge.

Ian's death toll: Florida officials say at least 21 deaths could be tied to Hurricane Ian

Tropical Storm Ian destruction to Volusia County 'is indescribable'

Ian, now battering areas to the north of Florida along the Eastern Seaboard, was nearly a Category 5 storm at its height when it slammed into Florida's Gulf Coast Wednesday afternoon and will go down as one of the state's most destructive hurricanes. It will take months for most areas of the state to return to any sort of normalcy, and years for the hardest-hit regions of Florida.

"The destruction left by Hurricane Ian is indescribable," Volusia County Community Information Director Kevin Captain said at a news conference Friday afternoon. "Homes, roads, businesses and even our iconic Speedway are all under water."

Captain said many roads in Volusia County remain under water and littered with fallen trees. Abandoned cars have also been left along the sides of roads.

Although Volusia County has lifted its curfew, Captain urged people not to leave their homes "unless it's absolutely necessary." Residents should also stay off of the beach, where high waves remain, beach walkovers are damaged and debris is scattered around.

About 400 people remained in shelters throughout Volusia County Friday, and on Saturday morning they will be transferred to the Ocean Center on Daytona's beachside. The storm refugees will be able to stay there for at least the next few weeks, and the American Red Cross is helping with assistance people there will need.

"I hope we all reflect this weekend on what a historic and catastrophic event we faced here," said Sheriff Mike Chitwood. "There are untold numbers who had catastrophic losses to their homes and property."

Chitwood said his dispatchers fielded more than 600 calls from people who needed to be rescued. The callers were trapped in places like Daytona Beach, which had more than 10 inches of rain. Three more cities each had around 11 inches of rain: DeBary, Lake Helen and Edgewater.

DeLand was even harder hit with around 13 inches of rain, and New Smyrna Beach fared worst with more than 15 inches of rain.

Chitwood said the good news was that as of late Friday afternoon there were no pending requests from people who needed to be evacuated.

'Something is wrong with the system'

Cynthia Slater is a lifelong resident of Midtown, and she said the calamity caused by Ian is some of the worst she's seen in her 66 years. As the floodwaters started to creep toward her home on Kottle Circle Thursday morning, she decided to get in her car and flee.

She had to drive over a neighbor's lawn to get out, but she made it to safety in Jacksonville. Some of her neighbors were stranded, including a woman with a few children and a bedridden man.

Slater tried to get back to her house Friday afternoon, but floodwater prevented her from driving past Lockhart Street.

A neighbor told her all the homes on her street were flooded, and there had been some rescues.

Slater, who's the head of the Daytona Beach branch of the NAACP, is running short on patience for flooding mitigation that's been needed in Midtown for decades. Even Tuscawilla Park, located just west of Midtown, turned into a giant lake this week.

"We can't continue running from water and rain like this," Slater said. "It's the residents who have to suffer all the time. Something is wrong with the system."

City officials have been trying for years to secure money for an exhaustive study that would help determine how to improve water flow in the area. In the meantime, the city has added new storm water pipes, retention ponds and pumps in the Midtown area.

But Slater wants more dramatic changes soon.

"I don't know why they're not trying to do better," she said. "I'm angry."

Tropical Storm Ian swamps Pelican Bay

Midtown's topography is like a bowl, and so it's not surprising to long-term residents when it floods. But Daytona Beach's Pelican Bay neighborhood on the city's west side is not a place known to become hostage to standing water.

So when Ian dumped inch after inch of rain on Pelican Bay, residents there were shocked to find their roads engulfed in water that refused to recede.

City Commissioner Stacy Cantu has lived in Pelican Bay for 24 years, and she's never seen the neighborhood south of Beville Road flood like it did this week. Residents still couldn't drive out Friday.

"The water isn't going down," Cantu said Friday morning. "We have issues with clogged drains, but we've never had this issue with flooding. Never."

Cantu said she didn't even bother getting sandbags because it didn't occur to her she might want them.

"None of us ever dreamed we'd get bad like this," she said.

She said some Pelican Bay residents had water come into their garages, and others couldn't flush their toilets because there was no power at lift stations.

She said she was up all of Wednesday night because she was afraid her pool was going to overflow and spill into her house. That didn't happen, but her home did suffer some damage to the fence, roof, skylight and siding.

Cantu said she's been worried about people walking in the floodwater in her neighborhood.

"It's dangerous for us because we have alligators and snakes," she said.

She said she yelled at some teenagers standing on a power box in the middle of a flooded area and taking selfies.

Frequent flooding target spared

Daytona's Beach Street property owners are used to flooding after storms, but it never gets easier.

This time, though, Sweet Marlays' coffee shop owner Tammy Kozinski caught a break. Somehow water that had risen at least six inches in front of her shop didn't get in.

She did lose thousands of dollars in food, though, since the power has been out since Wednesday.

She said if she had to face another extensive cleanup in the shop she opened in 2010, she might have shut down the business. It took her a month to restore her shop after 2017's Hurricane Irma.

"I don't know that I would have done it again," Kozinski said.

Waves on Daytona's Beach Street

Daytona's Beach Street has a 100-year history of flooding during major storms, but jewelry store owner Al Brewer still had hopes Thursday that the riverfront corridor had been spared the worst Hurricane Ian had to mete out.

He was wrong.

"It was almost epic the amount of water," said Brewer, owner of Evans & Son Jewelers on Beach Street near Orange Avenue.

He said the floodwater extended up to Ridgewood Avenue, making all the side streets connecting to Beach Street also impassable.

On Beach Street, the water flow looked like a river.

"There were waves," he said.

Brewer said the floodwater at Orange and Palmetto avenues was up to cars' windshields.

Brewer was hoping the new seawall and storm sewer pipes in Riverfront Park would help ease water rise, but they were no match for Ian. He said the water rose at least 6 inches along the front of his building.

Brewer lives in Ormond Beach about four blocks south of the Granada Bridge, and when the weather calmed down for a while in the afternoon he got in his large pickup truck and headed south on Beach Street.

"I made it three blocks and then it was flooded," he said. "Trees were down everywhere.

He had to shift over to U.S. Highway 1, and eight of the 10 intersections he drove through had traffic lights that weren't working. He also saw trees strewn across U.S. 1.

Once he was downtown, he tried every path he could think of to get to his shop: International Speedway Boulevard, Orange Avenue, the rear parking lot, Magnolia Avenue. Nothing worked.

"In 45 years that's the first time I didn't make it to my building," Brewer said.

He was hoping by Friday morning the water will have receded enough for him to check out his shop.

He's not worried about the floodwater creeping up into his business since it's one of the few Beach Street stores that has its first floor a few feet above the sidewalk. But he still wants to check for other types of damage and make sure everything is secure.

'I lost everything I have'

At noon Friday, Dunlawton Avenue in Port Orange was still impassable and many side streets were under water.

Frankie Matos, who lives on Ruth Street, was standing in front of Atlantic Marine at 520 Dunlawton Ave. when he realized he still had no access to his home.

"I could peek through the fence and see that the house is still there, thank God," Matos said. "But when I left, it was under two feet of water."

Matos, who moved to Florida from New York 20 years ago, said it was the worst hurricane he'd ever been through. As he listened to a pump humming, he was hopeful that he would be able to get back to his house soon.

"The first time I came by (the water) was up to here," he said pointing to his waist. "I don’t know where the water is going to, a retention pond or the ocean, but they’re slowly getting rid of it."

Once he gets back to his home, he expects to find devastation.

"I lost my house. I lost everything I have … all my belongings and possibly my Jeep," he said. "I’m surprised it’s still driving. All my electronics were going crazy."

As Matos headed back to his vehicle, drivers were impatiently beeping at one another. He urged people to to be kind.

"People can be so mean," he said. "You don’t know what that man in that car just lost. Just be compassionate."

Deltona struggling with flooding and power loss

Ian, nearly unprecedented in its power and size, "caused widespread power outages as well as flooding," Deltona Fire Chief Bill Snyder said Friday afternoon in a press briefing at City Hall.

The storm knocked out traffic lights, downed trees and powerlines, and left many roadways filled with water into Friday afternoon, even with the sun shining.

"Please, please stay off the roads unless it’s essential for you to be out there," Snyder said.

He said multiple people have misjudged the roadway due to standing water and wound up stuck in their vehicles and in need of rescue.

Mayor Heidi Herzberg said by phone Friday afternoon that the city, overall, faired well, though some areas have worse flooding than others.

Nick Lulli didn’t think the water would be an issue as he’s in a newly built home that isn’t in a flood zone or high-risk area.

"I can’t even hold water in my yard after an afternoon thunderstorm," Lulli said by phone Friday. "We didn’t even go out and get sandbags because I thought, 'I'll leave it for the people who live by lakes.' "

But late Friday afternoon, Lulli remained stuck inside his home in the 3600 block of Sunday Drive due to flooding and standing water in the roadway.

A dry pond a block north of Lulli’s home overflowed, and while water didn’t intrude into Lulli’s home, he couldn't say the same for his neighbor.

"Her house is ruined, and this is a brand-new house," Lulli said.

You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com. Correspondent Tammie Shanahan and reporter Katie Kustura contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Tropical Storm Ian battered Florida's Volusia and Flagler counties