After two days of flooding on San Marco Boulevard, Jessica Eilbeck and her employees at The Row House exercise studio hauled sand bag material inside Friday to keep the water out and fans to dry out what had been soaked over recent days.

Eilbeck looked at the soaked flooring around her, where trucks speeding through thigh-deep water had splashed debris around her entrance the night before.

She said she had to park four blocks away, then walk past other businesses with sandbags and boards staving off water seeping through doors and windows.

When she got to her business, their attempts to waterproof The Row House had failed.

“There was at least 2 inches in the entire studio. There was water coming in the back door, which is pretty low. Typically, we don’t have that issue,” she said. “It was like a swimming pool over in Florida Juice and Bowl’s parking lot (next door). We had water coming in the front door; we had water coming in the back door. It was like Whack-a-Mole. You just couldn’t do anything about it.”

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The flooding on LaSalle Street was so deep Thursday night that resident Maureen Musgrave took to a kayak to see what the rest of her neighborhood looked like, even floating to a delivery truck on a dry street nearby to take a delivery to a flooded neighbor. Watching knee-deep water lapping against her home, she wondered what the next heavy rain might do.

“I have lived here for about four years, and I have never seen it this bad. We had some bad hurricanes a couple of years ago, and last night was much worse than that,” Musgrave said. “I was safe, but I am worried about the next couple of days as the rain keeps dropping and it doesn’t go anywhere. Last night was worse than the night before, so is tonight going to be worse, and is the next night going to be worse? So I am worried if it keeps getting worse, it will actually enter my house.”

Almost a foot of rain

The National Weather Service reports most of the rainfall since Tuesday has been near Downtown and south along the Interstate 95 corridor, with 6 to 11 inches of total rain falling in that area as of Thursday night. The latest deluges put San Marco Boulevard and streets east and west underwater. Other flooding spots also were reported.

At 4 a.m. Friday, both directions of Old St Augustine Road between Pritmore and Crown Point roads were shut due to flooding. Even hours later, the section of Old St Augustine Road as it merges into San Jose Boulevard remained underwater as crews worked to clear storm drains.

Parts of Crown Point Road nearby had evidence of flooding as Friday morning’s rush hour ended, while the entrance to The Moorings at San Jose neighborhood remained flooded. Many drivers turned around rather than plow through.

Back in San Marco, City Councilman Joe Carlucci tweeted early Friday that he was speaking to the city’s public works director about what solutions the city can deploy immediately to help alleviate this flooding, which he called “ridiculous.”

He said he received assurances that a new pump was added to the Landon Avenue and San Marco Boulevard intersection, plus six more along LaSalle Street.

“They were able to de-clog some of the reported issues in underground pipes, and they were able to clear the filters at two other pump stations at Childrens’ Way,” he said. “That is what they have been working on nonstop. You kind of hope that Mother Nature cooperates.”

Drainage improvements planned

The city has had portable pumps in spots along San Marco Boulevard to push flood waters off streets and back into the St. Johns River. And crews are still working on a permanent pump station on LaSalle Street just west of San Marco Boulevard, work that began in May 2023 and is expected to be done early next year. More drainage improvements on LaSalle Street are planned to help with flooding, city officials said.

But as Eilbeck pointed to the thigh-high point where flood waters rose Thursday night next to her business’s front door, she said it was the worst flooding she has seen in their three years of business. Although you know when a hurricane is coming, the heavy rains of the last few days were unpredictable, leaving the business “a minute to get prepared” for rising waters, she said.

That said, she tried to prepare for more flooding, although the weather service is predicting only about an inch more rain through Monday.

“We have sandbags. We are going to try and lift our exercise equipment off the floor if it floods again. We are getting up the rest of the water,” Eilbeck said. “We are not going to clean this place until Sunday or Monday. We are just going to close down.”

Musgrave concurred. A crew from the city’s nearby drainage project came over to look at a new sinkhole that appeared on her front lawn after Thursday’s flood had receded.

“You get a lot of warnings with hurricanes,” she said. “No warning with this.”

Musgrave also said that many cars tried to drive down her flooded street, and most ended up being towed Friday morning after they had stalled.

After her kayak trip down flooded street after street, she had a new nickname for San Marco Boulevard: the “South Canal.”