More than 70 Daytona Beach residents converged on the John H. Dickerson Community Center July 16 to attend afternoon and evening presentations and discussion workshops hosted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, for the City of Daytona Beach Flood Risk Management Feasibility Study.
The three-year, $3 million study, initiated in January 2024 through a Federal Cost Share Agreement between the district and the City of Daytona Beach, is designed to investigate, analyze and develop alternative solutions to mitigate persistent flooding in one of the city’s lowest elevation neighborhoods.
The 2-square-mile area of concern, bounded by the Nova Canal, Orange Ave., Ridgewood Ave. and Beville Rd., is home to some 8,000 residents and 2,800 critical structures, including residences and a variety of civic and business entities. The area of concern is surrounded by higher ground, which creates a low lying, bowl-shaped topography susceptible to flooding from significant rainfall and storms. Additionally, an unmanageable amount of runoff enters the area from the west during major storm events.
“The objective of these workshops is to see where our problems are,” said Jacksonville District project manager Jim LaGrone. “Are we understanding where there might be mitigation opportunities? Are there constraints we haven't thought of? Are there issues that the residents can bring to our attention for consideration as we develop a set of possible solutions?”
Neighborhood residents, plagued by persistent rainfall flooding and hammered by significant storm events in recent years, were not shy in providing information and expressing their concerns.
“You feel helpless,” said longtime resident Bill Leszewski. “I mean, you really do. There’s nothing you can do, and the water’s coming in and the damage is done. It would be awesome if they can come up with a solution to protect the neighborhood. I mean, that would just be peace of mind for everybody.”
After an overview presentation of the study process and timeline, the USACE team experts spoke directly with community members, listening to their flooding issues and experiences, and describing how the study will analyze data and develop an array of possible solutions.
“We have been working to understand these problems,” said LaGrone. “We want to make sure we understand all the inputs, to account for them in our analysis. That will inform our process as we develop possible mitigation solutions and then ask ourselves – is it economically feasible and is it environmentally feasible?”
The Daytona study team draws on expertise from three USACE South Atlantic Division districts: Mobile District contributes environmental, planning and economic analysis expertise; Savannah District is contributing engineering, hydraulics and hydrology capabilities; and Jacksonville District is bringing project management, real estate, legal and economic justice leadership to the joint enterprise.
The study is 100 percent federally funded through the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2023.
Bolstered with insights gathered at Tuesday’s workshops, the team will now continue developing and refining an array of alternatives to arrive at the most holistically effective combination of solutions, what USACE calls its Tentatively Selected Plan, by next summer. It expects to make that plan available for public review and comment sometime in August 2025.
“They need to do something,” said resident Namon Vreen. “But I'm glad we got the money for this study. I just hope something can be done.”
The public can obtain news, updates and information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District on the district’s website at www.saj.usace.army.mil, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JacksonvilleDistrict, Twitter at www.twitter.com/JaxStrong, and Instagram at www.instagram.com/jacksonvilledistrict.