STEINHATCHEE, Fl. (WTXL) — The only way you’re able to get down these roads is by boat.
“We’re gonna get lunch just to get out of the woods for a few hours.”
Allen and Bobbie Rice live in the Ancient Oaks Neighborhood. The Steinhatchee River is creating a canal on Northeast River Road.
“We’ve been through this several times now so we always make sure we’re stocked up.”
Their yard is underwater. The house is built well above ground. They are one of the lucky ones.
“When I built the house we brought in a lot of fill and we raised it to about the hundredth year flood height.”
It's a much different story for Eadee Verburg.
“It’s the first day I got to walk into my house without any water in it.”
Verburg says she had two feet of water in her house at one point.
“Everything is destroyed everything has mold on it. I was just able to turn on my air conditioning yesterday to try and prevent that and it’s…just horrible.”
Good friends and neighbors like Larry Myers say he’s been lending his boat to neighbors so they can cross the Steinhatchee. He even delivers supplies to friends and neighbors who are stuck.
“We’re taking this stuff to her that the county provided and the neighbors are helping her. They went over there and cleaned out what they could. Put some furniture up this and that.”
And while the water is slowly going away, Fred could bring more heavy rain in Steinhatchee, raising water levels once again. It's something people who live in this community do not want to think about.
“Any rain that we get now is going to slow down the receding water, and we want this water to recede as fast as possible."
To put this historic flooding into perspective, the only time folks in Steinhatchee have seen water levels this high was back in September of 1964.
