Pineville Lane residents begin recovery after Milton’s inundation

LAKELAND — The shirtless man bent forward in his dining room Wednesday afternoon and tore a hunk of drywall away from the studs.

The ruined material soon landed atop a growing pile in front of the man’s home on Pineville Lane in northwest Lakeland.

Many Pineville residents have undertaken the same task as the 64-year-old man, who gave only his first name, Tim. Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Milton struck, the one-street neighborhood still displayed the lasting impact of the storm, which dumped as much as 16 inches of rain in parts of Polk County.

While stacks of tree debris are commonly seen elsewhere in Polk, Pineville Lane teemed with piles of discarded household items — washers and dryers, headboards, mattresses, pillows, couches, TVs, speakers, clothing, coolers, dressers, doors and children’s toys. And untold pounds of drywall, removed from the lower sections of interior walls.

An odor of mildew pervaded the neighborhood.

Itchepackesassa Creek runs parallel to Pineville Lane, passing within about 50 feet of some duplexes and houses on the west side of the road. The neighborhood, set just south of Swindell Road, has flooded before, but residents said the water has never risen as high as it did during and soon after Milton passed directly over Polk County.

Orlando Toledo, whose home occupies a high spot on the road’s west side, said he barely escaped water intrusion. On Wednesday, Toledo pointed to a shutter beside the window of a nearby brick-covered home, where a water mark remained visible more than 4 feet above ground level.

The glass panes of the window were missing. Toledo said that fire rescue crews broke the windows to carry out a woman with disabilities while water still surrounded the home.

“My friend in the brick apartment, he lost everything — everything, everything,” Toledo said.

A black Chrysler sedan sat in the back yard. During the peak of the flooding, the car disappeared under the wash of water, which rose higher than a nearby chain-link fence, Toledo said.

Other apparently ruined cars sat in driveways. Some had already been towed away, residents said.

‘The worst I’ve seen’

A few doors down from Toledo, Tim gave a reporter a brief tour of his 1,530-square-foot home. He and friends had torn out the drywall as high as three feet up from the floor to ensure that any water-damaged material was gone.

“It got really wet,” he said.

Tim said he has lived on Pineville Lane since 2005. The household includes his wife and son, and his grandchildren often visit. He said the area has flooded several times after storms, but the only previous time water intruded in his home was during Hurricane Irma in 2017.

Tim pointed to a white car sitting in his driveway, saying it had been totaled by water damage from Milton.

He said he thought his home insurance covered flooding but learned after the storm that it did not. He said that representatives from FEMA had visited the neighborhood but had denied some appeals for help, including his own.

A few doors to the north, a family of four, including one child, had returned to their duplex after fleeing for a hotel after Hurricane Milton. One resident, a 22-year-old man who declined to give his name, said the lower sections of the interior walls had been removed.

As Mexican norteña music played from inside, the man demonstrated the depth the water had reached in the home, raising his hand near his waist. A stack of his family’s ruined belongings sat along the curb in front — a bed, a couch and some countertops.

The flooding also totaled the man’s 2019 Toyota Corolla, which had already been towed away. He recalled seeing smoke issue from other waterlogged vehicles as their owners tried to start them.

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“It usually happens — not every hurricane, but maybe every four years,” he said of the flooding. “It might collect, like, a foot of water, but not this high. This is the worst I’ve seen it.”

The man, whose family rents the home, said the owners had visited and taken photos to assess the damage. He said most of his neighbors also rent, and many had indicated that they planned to return after the homes were restored.

He said that his insurance will not cover the damage.

“I had to dig into my savings a little bit,” he said. “Other than that, I’ve just got to rebuild my savings again.”

Removing threats of mold

Nearer Swindell Road, Johnny Jenner wore a heavy mask containing filters as he toiled inside an empty duplex, cutting out and removing damaged drywall. Jenner said the property owner, Hosanna Real Estate Services, had just completed work on the home, including the installation of new cabinets, before Hurricane Milton arrived, pushing about two feet of water into the duplex unit.

“Somebody had just moved out, so we fixed it up,” he said. “Then the storm came here. The storm had different plans.”

Jenner said he lives near Lake Bonny, where residents have been coping with unprecedented flooding, but he said his home escaped any water intrusion.

While working at the duplex on Pineville Lane, Jenner has gotten to know some of the residents. He said he had learned about the plight of a family renting a nearby.

“Apparently, their landlords just absolutely refusing to do anything for them,” he said. “Like, they had this big tree fall in their yard. The landlord said they weren’t going to cut it up. He’s not doing anything inside to help them out.”

No one answered a knock at the duplex unit.

At another apartment on the road’s west side, a two-man crew engaged in the restoration of an unoccupied unit. Errick Maise, one of the workers, said the owner had just paid to remodel the kitchen, install new baseboards and bathroom fixtures and paint the interior before the hurricane. All those improvements had to be removed and replaced, Maise said.

Near Itchepackesassa Creek:Floodwaters invade homes, cover roads in Northwest Polk

The workers had detected mold not only in the drywall but on some of the wall studs, Maise said. They planned to use a mold-killing spray and allow the home to air out for a few days before returning.

Evidence that life remains far from normal could be seen elsewhere along Pineville Lane. In front of one duplex, an outdoor dining area had been established, and a pot sat upon a large grill attached to a propane tank. A container labeled “Emergency Drinking Water,” from the Florida Division of Emergency Management, sat on a metal cabinet outside one home.

A large blue tarp covered the roof of one duplex, near a cluster of sawed-up branches from a fallen pine tree.

A green notice from the Polk County Utilities Division, affixed to the door of an apparently unoccupied unit close to Swindell Road, declared, “Water service has been disconnected.”

A man in a pickup truck made his way down the street, loading discarded appliances into the cargo bed. The man, who did not give his name, said he had been collecting ruined items all around the Lakeland area to sell as scrap metal.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.