Callaway Residents Help Each Other Stay Above Water

Bill the cat was the first in his house to know the trouble Hurricane Frances had left behind for the Callaway subdivision. Rick Schultz’s cat awakened him early Tuesday morning, and the aviation liaison engineer looked out his back window to see the 4-acre retention pond, which takes in water from several other subdivisions bleeding dangerously close to his house.
“It did not take three hours for it to flood, once the water breached the retention ponds upstream,” Schultz said. “And the water just kept rising and rising.”
On the other side of the pond, at about 6:30 that morning, Mark and Donna Ellis’ 11-year-old daughter Karyn awakened on an already wet floor. By then, the carpet was already saturated, and the ceramic tile had accumulated 2 inches of water.
“You’re just numb at that point,” Ellis said. “You don’t think about anything, but how to get to safety. This is all so overwhelming.”
They monitored the retention pond before going to bed and thought they would be safe. By the time the family left in their Blazer with whatever belongings they could carry Tuesday morning, the water in their yard was “high-calf high,” Ellis said. Their house was the first to go, but by Tuesday another home was flooded, with two others – Schultz’s and Tom Ottum’s houses – in jeopardy.
None of the families have flood insurance. They say they didn’t think insurance was necessary since they were told the subdivision wasn’t in the 100-year flood plain.
“We were led to believe that this was a no-flood zone,” said Ellis, who moved here from Ohio about a year ago. “The neighbors said the area has been predisposed to flooding, but that wasn’t what we were told when we moved in. We just want answers and some accountability.”
Residents say the flooding happens because water from other areas, including the Kirby Road and Emerald Lake subdivisions, drains into the Callaway retention pond.
“All of that water comes down here,” said Ottum, a resident since April.
The Suwannee River Water Management District shut off a couple of retention ponds that were draining into Callaway. On Thursday, the county was pumping water from the pond to a county retention pond.
While sandbags and a couple of sunny days helped the waters subside somewhat, the water was still precariously close to the homes, and thoughts were already turning to another potentially devastating strike by an even more powerful hurricane.
“Yesterday, it was still rising,” Ottum said. “Today, it went down 1 inch. We figure we have between 4 and 6 million gallons of water in that retention pond. They’re pumping 750 gallons a minute. There ain’t enough time before Ivan gets here to drain it down. So that’s not the answer.”
An answer may come soon. County commissioner George Skinner, who was in the subdivision Thursday handing out bottled water and military meals ready-to-eat with the American Red Cross, said the landowner gave his permission for a berm to be installed at the pond. The berm, a narrow ledge at the top of a slope, would act as somewhat of a dam and channel water away from the subdivision.
County manager Dale Williams expects the county to give its consent for Kirby Road to be used for the installation, but said the time frame is out of the county’s control.
The residents all say they believed they were moving into an area that was not prone to flooding. Schultz, however, said the pond has flooded in each of the four years he’s lived in the subdivision, and he has photographs from each year since 2001.
“But it maybe covered the road for a couple of inches, now we’re talking 18 inches to 2 feet out there,” he said. “I had great fear Tuesday night that I was going to be flooded out. Right now, I’m a little more comfortable, but if Ivan comes back, we’re going to lose it. This house is my retirement, and without flood insurance, I would lose everything that I’ve worked for in my entire life.”
In his four years in Callaway, Schultz said he has talked with the developer, who has taken a number of steps to alleviate the problem, such as the retention pond itself. He is not interested in pointing fingers or blaming anyone. He just wants action to help him and his neighbors save their homes and get their lives back.
“First, we have a temporary problem we need to alleviate before Ivan,” he said. “Let’s get the houses that are in peril out of peril, so these people can start to resume a normal life.
“The second thing is to look at doing something right now so no more water can come in here. This retention pond is adequate to hold the water of this subdivision. It is not adequate to hold the water of Emerald Forest, I-75, Kirby Road and all the other subdivisions.”
Another concern is people who bring 3-wheelers to the high-water retention pond. Two were chased away Thursday by law enforcement with a warning of charges if they were caught in the area again.
“We just ask people to be respectful in our neighborhood,” said resident Linda Northup.
The residents have pulled together in a variety of ways to help each other through the crisis. People with power and portable generators help those without it. They bring each other water. When the water threatened to seep into the Schultz house Tuesday, they helped plant sandbags to help save it.
“They were like ants,” Schultz said of the help that came when the flooding endangered his house. “People kept coming to get sandbags to help us out.”
Neighbors are also giving each other moral support, especially when the conversation turns from Frances to Ivan, as it did quite a few times Thursday.
“We’re already under water,” Ellis said. “But what’s going to happen to these other people? This water is not moving away. We’re already drenched, but the water is on their doorsteps.”

Dora, September 1964 A Time when Another Hurricane Burned Itself into Columbia County's Memory

June, too soon. July, stand by. August, look out, you must. September, remember. October, all over. (Mariner's weather poem)

Trees bent in unnatural angles. Lakes filled into Columbia County homes and streets. All local talk was on how weather had turned its ugly face on the area.
All this happened Sept. 5 when the county faced the worst hurricane disaster in its recorded history as Hurricane Frances delivered more than 15 inches of rain with the Category 4 storm's destructive winds. It also happened almost exactly 40 years earlier when Hurricane Dora swept across the state from the First Coast Sept. 9-10, 1964.
But unlike this year's storm, high winds forecast for the county didn't materialize from Hurricane Dora. But the area still had to cope with a rainfall comparable to Frances - an average of 14 inches.
"Live Oak was literally under water downtown," said Harvey Campbell, whose family had just moved to Lake City in 1964. "It's ironic almost exactly 40 years later to the day, we would have this Hurricane Frances just about do the same thing to us."
In 1964, water overflowed Lake DeSoto. Three miles of Lake City's roads were damaged so badly, they had to be rebuilt. Furniture floated inside flooded homes along the Santa Fe and Suwannee Rivers. And in Live Oak, which was deluged with more than 18 inches of rain in two days, people checked their mail in canoes.
"I've never seen the like of that much water in all my life," said Beatrice Sullivan, who lived in Bradford County in 1964. "That was one hurricane I'll never forget."
September has historically been a dangerous month for hurricanes in Florida. This September has already delivered Frances and Ivan, which hit Grenada, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands at Category 5 strength before aiming toward the Panhandle.
More than 60 percent of the major hurricanes that struck the state happened in September. There were Hurricanes Donna, Betsy and Eloise in 1960, 1965 and 1975. The worst was the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 in the Keys, one of only three Category 5 hurricanes to hit the U.S. mainland in the 20th century.
But a hurricane making a direct hit on northeast Florida was a rarity, at least in recent memory. Before 1964, Jacksonville had not faced a landfalling hurricane since 1871. In fact, a hurricane had not struck north of Stuart since the Hurricane of 1880.
After hanging on the northeast Florida coast most of the day on Sept. 9, Dora's eye struck at an almost 90-degree angle at St. Augustine about midnight Sept. 10 with 125-mph winds and a 10-foot storm tide at Fernandina Beach and Jacksonville.
About 1,000 people, many from Jacksonville, stayed in three Lake City shelters. By the time Dora left Lake City, it had caused about $100,000 in damages to city streets and sewers, then-Mayor J.R. Tison told the Lake City Reporter.
Seventh Street was practically undermined from one end to the other. Poplar Street was completely washed out, 10 feet deep in some places.
The storm greatly damaged corn and pecan crops. The Lake City drive-in theater lost its screen. Loyd Shaw Furniture lost 80 percent of its stock to water damage. On the positive side, all electricity was restored by Sunday.
Live Oak's downtown business district and a residential area on the town's north side were flooded - to rooftops in some places - when the city's drainage system of dry wells failed to function in the heavy rainfall, according to The Jasper News' archives.
North Florida received $3 million in federal funds to rebuild.
Dale Williams, now county manager, was 6 when Dora came through the area. He especially remembers the damage in Live Oak.
"What I remember most was all the water after Dora," Williams said. "My dad was the food inspector with the state and he had to drive around the county to see all the damage.
"You couldn't get to Live Oak in a car. You had to stop right on 90. You just don't forget that much water."
A day after the hurricane, The Beatles and President Lyndon B. Johnson visited Jacksonville.
Winnie Richardson, now the Columbia County senior services activity director, remembers hearing advisories about the storm, but wasn't particularly concerned.
"I just remember late that night it started raining and it kept raining," she said. "We got a lot of rain. But I was never really afraid. Even with (Hurricane) Charley, I was concerned, but never really frightened."
In 1964, Sam Markham taught junior high school math during the day and closed his father's restaurant, Magnolia Barbecue (better known as The Mag), at night and was also working on his master's degree in school administration at the University of Florida.
That night, he helped prepare the building for hurricane conditions and closed The Mag at dusk.
"There was enough wind to blow signs down and I remember thinking, 'If it keeps going, the sign on top of The Mag will be gone.' But we didn't lose the sign."
Lake Lona overflowed on to U.S. 90 into low-lying areas within a couple of miles. The rainfall was especially heavy in White Springs near the Suwannee River.
"Going toward the Hopeful (Baptist) Church, I saw water 1 mile wide," Markham said. "I've lived in Columbia County all my life and have seen the Suwannee River peak and flood. That was the highest water level in Lake City I can remember," he said before Hurricane Frances repeated history earlier this September.