HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — People who live near the Alafia River are still waiting for the water to recede.
Flooding from the Alafia River is spilling into David Wiggins's community.
“Usually if it's coming up, you get more time to deal with it where this time it came up pretty quick,” Wiggins said.
The Alafia River is right behind Wiggins’ home.
“The animals have to come upstairs, I had to put the lawnmower under the table and even that wasn't enough. I had to put blocks under it to keep it above the water,” Wiggins said.
As the water recedes, he gets ready for recovery efforts.
"It'll be days of picking stuff up and I have to get all of the stuff out of that property. I'm probably going to find some of their stuff I have to take back to them. Everything just flows," Wiggins said.
Neighbors like Wiggins said it's been a headache while Tampa Bay Water said it's been a relief.
“We were able to harvest about 200 million gallons a day to put in the reservoir and we're still treating another 80 million at our surface plant,” Hogg said.
The reservoir bottom was dry and sandy just a month ago. Now it's covered with water. So far, the storm has helped add an extra billion gallons of water into it, but it's not enough to fill it.
“The rivers will decrease flow after Hurricane Debby is gone so we're going to need regular summer rain falls, perhaps some other tropical rain. Hopefully no winds but good sustained rain in the summer to get as much in the reservoir as possible,” Hogg said.
Despite getting several inches of rain, Tampa Bay Water said there is still a water shortage.
"At the end of July, we were still at a deficit of three inches. The rainfall we received in August, it might take us out of that deficit by the end of the month if we continue to get regular rainfall for the month. We'll have to wait and see how the rest of August plays out," Hogg said.
Since December, Tampa Bay has been under an emergency once-a-week watering restriction due to extreme drought conditions. Earlier this month, Tampa City Council members approved an ordinance permanently enacting that restriction for residents' lawns.