Many in Polk County still await return of power. In some areas, the water's still rising

LAKELAND — The thrum of gas-powered generators and the whine of chainsaws provided the soundtrack Saturday as Polk County continued to recover from its first hurricane encounter in five years.

Tens of thousands of remained without electricity in the county, even as providers worked to restore service with help from out-of-state crews.

Meanwhile, the local medical examiner said that reports of two deaths in Polk County related to Hurricane Ian were false. Many news outlets spread the reports Friday, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned Polk as one of the counties with hurricane deaths during a news conference earlier in the day.

Dr. Stephen Nelson, medical examiner for the 10th Judicial Circuit, said his office had recorded no deaths related to Hurricane Ian as of Saturday morning. Nelson said that someone on the governor’s staff apparently confused Polk County with neighboring Lake County, where a death had been confirmed.

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“We’ve had no deaths in Polk County as of this moment,” Nelson said, adding: “When we get back in the office on Monday that very well may change.”

As of early Saturday afternoon, Lakeland Electric reported that just over 15,000 customers remained without power. The outages were widely distributed throughout the utility’s service area.

A map on the website of the city-owned utility showed nearly 70 customers without power in the Highland City area, at the southeast corner of Lakeland Electric’s coverage area.

The map indicated more than 600 customers lacking electricity in the southwest section, near Shepherd Road and County Line Road. Another 126 customers faced outages in the Rockridge Road area, north of Lakeland off U.S. 98, while 79 had no power in the Polk City area.

Tampa Electric, which provides power to thousands of Polk County residents, did not offer a breakdown of outages by county on Saturday. The company’s outage map showed outages scattered throughout the county, including spots in and around Auburndale, Winter Haven and Bartow.

A statement on TECO’s website said the company expected to restore power to “the vast majority of customers” by Sunday night.

“Some portions of Polk and Eastern Hillsborough County, which had more damage, should be restored by Monday night,” the statement said. “Some customers with more complex damage may take longer to restore.”

Fort Meade City Manager Jan Bagnall said Saturday that electricity had been restored to about 75% of the city’s residents as of 6 p.m. Friday. Fort Meade, one of Polk County’s smallest cities, operates its own utility.

Bagnall said crews were working Saturday to repair the circuit that sustained the most damage.

“The goal is to get that circuit up today (Saturday),” Bagnall said in a text message. “We are starting to focus on the isolated outages today and (Sunday)."

Flooding concerns persist

While water was receding through much of Polk County after two days without rain, residents of the Itchepackesassa Creek area northwest of Lakeland watched nervously Saturday morning as water continued to rise on and around their properties.

Josh Briggs, president of the homeowners association for the Country Class Meadows neighborhood, pointed to water encroaching behind his house, which sits on a 5-acre parcel. Briggs, who has led efforts to document flooding problems in the area, said flooding from the Itchepackesassa Creek first reaches the properties closest to Walker Road, at the entrance to the development, and gradually filters to his area, not far from the Hillsborough County line.

Briggs estimated that the area received seven or eight inches of rain during Hurricane Ian, a level he said was similar to the rains that fell during Hurricane Irma in 2017. The flooding could have been much worse if the storm had stayed on its projected path and struck near Tampa, sending a major storm surge up the Hillsborough River, which originates a few miles away.

“We got lucky on that,” Briggs said.

But water continued to rise on Briggs’ property and those of neighbors on Saturday morning. Briggs said he thinks that recent development just across the Hillsborough County border had affected water flow in the area, forcing water carried by Itchepackesassa Creek to get blocked and seep back toward his neighborhood.

Some residents of nearby Turkey Trail had water covering pastures behind their houses Saturday morning and coming close to their homes.

“We’re always worried,” said Barbara Acor, who has lived on Turkey with her husband, Barry, for 22 years.

So far, Barbara Acor said, the flooding wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been following Hurricane Irma in 2017. For days after that storm, she said, water covered their entire property, all the way to the street, and the couple went to stay with their daughter in Plant City until it subsided.

The Acors’ house is built six cinder blocks above ground level, and Barbara said they were spared water intrusion into the house after Irma.

As of Saturday morning, water had reached a fence about 100 feet behind the Acors’ house. Barbara Acor pointed to a yard flag her husband had planted in the pasture behind the fence the previous day to mark the flood line. Water had spread closer to the house since then.

Itchepackesassa Creek flows through the back of the Acors’ pasture, though it could only be discerned indirectly by a tree line on Saturday morning, having swelled so far outside its banks. Beyond that point, what appeared to be a lake could be seen.

Acor said that was the Wiggins Prairie Mitigation Bank, a nearly 500-acre conservation area created to offset the development of wetlands in the Hillsborough River basin. The area behind the Acors’ property was previously a sod farm, Barbara said, and other land in the project’s zone had been altered for farming and cattle grazing.

The project had turned the section back into a natural “bowl,” Acor said, and she credited that change for the reduced flooding she had experienced after Hurricane Ian, compared to Irma five years earlier.

Acor cited another factor.

“We are very, very, very fortunate this year because of the drought,” she said, referring to lower-than-normal rainfall through most of the summer. “Sometimes on just regular summers it gets wet like this. We’re very fortunate that the summer was dry.”

Still, she said neighbors had been forced to move horses and cows off their properties as the storm approached. Standing in water is hazardous for animals with hooves.

The Acors, like many other residents of the Itchepackesassa Creek area, remained without power on Saturday morning. Gas-powered generators could be heard running throughout the neighborhood, and some residents had parked recreational vehicles near their homes to serve as temporary dwellings.

Barbara Acor said it was worth coping with the flooding risks and power outages to live in a bucolic setting where several sandhill cranes and other birds foraged in her back yard.

“I grew up off Cleveland Heights (Boulevard),” she said, referring to a residential area in Lakeland. “We’ll take it here.”

Some residents of the semi-rural neighborhood worked in their yards Saturday morning, gathering debris from the hurricane. The aroma of smoke drifted through the streets, as some residents burned piles of branches.

Hurricane Ian toppled many large oak and pine trees throughout the area, and some of them fell onto power lines along the roads. A downed pine tree had pulled down power lines along Log Cabin Drive as of Friday morning, but by Saturday the danger had been cleared.

Musket Drive was partly blocked Saturday morning as a crew set up to repair the wreckage of a wooden power pole snapped about 12 feet above ground level. Wires held by the pole dangled to the street.

Briggs said he had originally received an estimate that the power might be out for 12 to 15 days. He said he learned that crews had completed an assessment of damages, and he hoped repair work would begin within three days.

Shelters emptying

As of Saturday morning, a small number of residents remained at an emergency shelter in Bartow, county spokesperson Mianne Nelson said. The residents have special medical needs, and electrical power had not yet been restored at their homes, Nelson said.

The residents required electricity to run medical devices, such as oxygen machines, Nelson said.

Employees from Polk County’s code enforcement division were traveling through the county to assess damage from Hurricane Ian, Nelson said. She said “a very preliminary” estimate might be available by Saturday afternoon.

“The damage is more from flooding than wind,” Nelson said. “We’re not seeing of lot of what we would call major damage.”

Nelson said the county expects to send out 40 trucks starting Monday to collect hurricane debris. She said contractors were being certified over the weekend to ensure they met FEMA standards to take part in the collection.

The trucks will deploy mechanical claws to collect yard debris. Nelson said residents should avoid placing debris under power lines or near trees or mailboxes to ensure the trucks will have enough room to maneuver. She also advised residents not to place debris in streets, as that may prevent the trucks from getting past.

Polk County school updates

Polk County Public Schools Superintended Frederick Heid posted a statement Friday saying that the district hadn’t yet decided about reopening schools for Monday. More than half of the district’s schools remained without power as of Thursday, Heid said.

If power were restored by Saturday to all sites, schools could reopen Monday, the statement said. As of Saturday at 1 p.m., there was no additional information.

The Schools of McKeel Academy will reopen Monday, a spokesperson said. Lake Wales Charter Schools planned to reopen Monday, according to a statement on the district’s website, but parents and students were urged to check for updates.

As of Saturday morning, Polk State College had not announced whether classes would resume on Monday.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.