News

Lake Update From Our District Engineer:

Lake 8 has had more water in it than it has in a very long time and there have been a few residents concerned about the water level. When reviewing the SWFWMD permit plans we did not see an outfall to this lake as the lake was large enough to handle the 100 year storm event. However we did find that there is an outfall from this lake. It is only a 6 or 8 inch pipe that drains to the ditch to the north near the back gate, so it has been lowering the water level constantly.

Before finding out that there was an outfall we reviewed the elevations surrounding Lake 8 to determine if anyone’s home could possibly be in danger in the event that the water continued to rise. From what we found, the lowest finished floor grades on the homes would still be over 12” above a point where the water would be backing up through the storm grate inlets in the roads and spilling over the perimeter banks into the ditches on the north, west and east side of the community. On the south side it would back up into the roadway and spill over into the drainage basin that connects to one of the southern lakes, which has a separate discharge. There are side yard swales that will allow the water to flow from the lake to the roadway before getting high enough to reach the finished floor to the homes.

I would not be concerned with any potential for flooding at this location unless we get a direct hit from a hurricane. The amount of water that can backflow through the storm water system should be greater than any type of rainfall event so the roadway could potentially become flooded up to about 1’ deep before it will begin to discharge over the perimeter berms.