Floridians mopping up as waters recede

PENSACOLA, Fla. - As Florida panhandle residents and business owners started the long process Thursday of cleaning up as floodwaters receded, a food pantry with no space to store canned goods begged donors to give money instead.

Manna Food Pantries, the primary food pantry in the Pensacola area, may be a total loss after 3 feet of water flooded food coolers and administrative offices. It can’t accept new food donations because it has nowhere to store them, Executive Director DeDe Flounlacker said.

“If you were thinking of giving a can of food, give $5 instead,” Flounlacker told the Pensacola News-Journal. “It’s about as bad as it can be. Nobody got hurt, though, and we’re glad for that.”

Nearly 24 inches of rain drenched Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in the span of about 24 hours. Officials assessing the damage Thursday said they were exploring whether to have both counties declared disaster zones.

Burst water pipes in Gulf Breeze compounded flooding from the rain, and receding waters exposed buckled roadways. About 660 Gulf Power customers remained without power Thursday morning.

A boil-water notice remained in effect for parts of Pensacola along Escambia Bay. The Emerald Coast Utilities Authority lost three service trucks in the flooding, including one that maintenance workers used to help free a woman trapped in her car, executive director Stephen Sorrell said.

Kyle Schmitz returned to his Pensacola home Thursday to find a dark brown line ringing the exterior, marking how high the water rose after he fled Tuesday night with his 18-month-old son. He was packing clothes, dishes and books that had stayed dry on high shelves, but larger, soaked pieces of furniture such as his bed and couch were destined to be left at the curb.

Schmitz told his landlords that he’d have to find somewhere else to live.

“It’s pretty obvious I’m not coming back to this house,” he said. “I told them, ‘Rent’s due today, it’s the first of the month, but I’m not going to pay that.’ They said, ‘We get that.’”

In Washington County, Bridgette Phillips’ husband had to kayak from the road to the front door of their Greenhead home to assess the damage.

They don’t live near a creek or reservoir, but the neighborhood has poor drainage. Their yard was completely flooded. Without anywhere else to go, the water seeped into the house.

“There was 2 feet of waterin the house. It was coming up through the floors,” Phillips said. “It’s horrible.”

In Bay County, Fla., officials warned residents that even though the rains had passed, high water levels in lakes, rivers and reservoirs were straining flood-control measures and that more flooding and runoff may be possible.

A woman who died when she drove her car into high water was identified as a retired school-district employee. The Florida Highway Patrol said Betty Faye Word drowned Wednesday when her Mercedes was submerged by floodwaters just north of Pensacola.

The system spawned deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi early this week. It then soaked the panhandle and Alabama’s Gulf Coast before it continued to move east Thursday.

As it moved up the East Coast, heavy rains overflowed rivers and creeks in the places including Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. Roads were closed across the region, and several people had to be rescued from waterlogged homes and cars.

Commuter train service also was interrupted.

In Mississippi on Thursday, searchers found the body of an 8-year-old boy killed in a tornado that tore through the state Monday.

Tyler Tucker was found just before 3 p.m., about 200 yards from where the bodies of his mother and father had been found in a wooded area on the east side of Louisville. Tyler’s death was the 14th attributed to the twister outbreak in Mississippi.

Information for this article was contributed by Jeff Amy and staff members of The Associated Press.