NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — After heavy rain swept through early Thursday, Nassau County had trees down, power outages and flooding across the county.
“It poured. I mean you can hear it. It’s like somebody just turned the faucet on the roof and let it go all night,” Skylar Yoachum said.
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Skylar and Dana Yoachum live in Callahan just off Lem Turner Road and have never seen rain like this.
“It’s about three feet when you go in there. It’s about three feet deep,” Dana Yoachum said.
The Yoachums said when they walked outside, they felt like they were living on an island. Their home is literally surrounded by water. Our Action News Jax First Alert Weather Team said Nassau County saw between 4 to 6 inches of rain.
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In Fernandina Beach at Crossroads Plaza just off Sadler Road, Action News Jax crews found a flooded parking lot.
“I have never seen the water this deep. I wanted to turn around and go the other way,” Bill Johnson said.
In Yulee, people woke up with no power after a tree fell on a power line on Edwards Road.
Several neighbors showed us trees snapped in half in their front yards.
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Yoachum said Thomas Creek backs up and doesn’t drain correctly and he’s hoping something can be done so this doesn’t keep happening.
“We’ve called the city, we’ve called the state, we’ve called local, and nobody is saying they are responsible,” Yoachum said.
Action News Jax’s Alicia Tarancon reached out to the Nassau County Board of Commissioners and Commissioner Klynt Farmer said in a email there is no simple short-term solution.
He said the Army Corps of Engineers suggested building a several mile long wall alongside Thomas Creek complete with pumps but later learned it’s a job that could cost taxpayers more than $20 million.
In the meantime, Farmer said he said the road and bridges department is out cleaning ditches, replacing culverts, and mowing vegetation among other jobs.
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