Ron Legler, 61-year-old Yankeetown, Fla., resident, tugged his trash bags further up his legs and sloshed onto his watery lawn.
His neighbor, Debbie Bohon, watched as her dogs raced across the soggy turf.
“Oh yeah, I’ve never seen it like this,” Bohon said.
John MacDonald, interim director for Levy County Emergency Management, said a low front pushed more water inland in the past week than usual, but regular summer weather patterns are expected to return within a few days.
Coastal areas in Levy have experienced damage, but most of the damage MacDonald has seen has been further inland to areas such as Inglis.
Due to the flooding, Levy County released a boil water notice on Aug. 4. Residents are advised take steps to decontaminate their overflowing wells.
Rhiannon Castle, Yankeetown town clerk, said parents should avoid letting their children play in the water because standing water could also be contaminated.
According to MacDonald, there's not much to be done about standing water except to wait for it to drain away.
“It was just too much water coming it out way too fast, faster than the drainage areas we do have can handle," MacDonald said.
To speed up the process, residents are welcome to pump water out of their yards into approved drainage areas, but not onto the street or other yards, MacDonald said.
Levy county residents like Legler and Bohon are dealing the best they can. Bohon’s entire routine has changed because of the weather.
“When I leave, I have to wear my boots to get to my car because I can’t wear my tennis shoes till I get into the job. I can’t mow the yard now, the yard’s all flooded. My pets don’t go out cause they don’t want to be in the water,” Bohon said.
In order to walk her dogs, she carries them in her arms across the water to a drier patch of land.
Fortunately, her house stood far above ground level, lifting it away from the rain water still pooled underneath.
“As long as my house is dry, and I’m doing okay, I’m all right,” Bohon said. “It’s mother nature. What are they gonna do?”