BARTOW, Fla. — In Bartow, near the Peace River, concerns are being raised about cresting after Hurricanes Milton and Helene, and local agencies are monitoring this closely.
The message Thursday from Bartow city officials is they're cautiously optimistic the river will not boil over.
However, water is already beginning to creep into nearby communities where several residents near Tee Avenue in Bartow are accustomed to high water flow. Still, they are on alert with levels at emergent levels.
Bartow Fire Chief Jay Robinson said 7.8 feet is considered ‘action level’, but Peace River is currently at 8.8, only inches away from the critical level of nine feet, with chances of cresting over at any moment.
“Our critical level is nine feet, and we know that takes us to a point where water can get into our wastewater treatment plant,” Jay Robinson Bartow Fire Chief said. “We would have to shut power off at the mobile home park that's there, and that would lead to some sheltering needs.”
Eddie Brown has lived in his Bartow neighborhood since the 1970s. His street is already blocked off with water creeping in, but Brown said this is a common occurrence.
"Our water doesn’t seem to flow to Peace River; Peace River seems to come to us,” Brown said. “What we are all worried about is what's going to be added to this water already here.”
Charles Russell is Brown’s neighbor. Both get a front-row seat to rising water levels in their neighborhood, but Russell is in a wheelchair and when the levels get too high, he must evacuate.
“I've had to move out of my house twice because of that waterline,” Russell said. “I've been blessed so far that [water] has ever come into my house.”
For Brown, his home is unfortunately often hit by rising water.
“The whole back end of my home got flooded. 21 to 25 inches of rainwater under that part of the main house that we had to pump out ourselves,” Brown said.
Chief Robinson said the multi-agency help is the key resource that may keep the river from spilling over.
“The water control makes us able to maintain, but it is going to stay high at least through the weekend before we start to see some reduction in those numbers,” Robinson said.
At the Water Reclamation Facility in Bartow workers put in dozens of hours of work to install a Tiger Dam, using more than 144,000 gallons of water to fill each tube.
The Tiger Dam is serving as the main barrier to the facility from rising water, a situation that Robinson said would become catastrophic, but right now, he’s cautiously optimistic the water will not boil over.
“We're not out of the woods yet,” Robinson said. “We want to make sure, multiple times a day, there are fire crews going out and checking the river.”