‘This is practice for the hurricanes’: Siesta Key residents sum up historic rainfall

SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — Several streets on Siesta Key were flooded from Tuesday night’s rainfall.

Eight inches of rain fell in three hours across the county. Some roads were still blocked off Wednesday afternoon due to the flooding.

Gary Kennedy lives near Higel Avenue and said it took him several hours to get home Tuesday night.

“It just started raining for hours and hours and hours, and I started getting worried about Siesta [Key] flooding,” he said. “Well, it wasn’t just Siesta [Key] flooding, all of Sarasota flooded. Every street was completely covered. You couldn’t see the street at all. You were just going through water and crossing your fingers that it’s not too deep.”

A group of teens shared a video of them scooping floodwaters out of their car.

The Sarasota Fire Department received multiple calls of people in cars stuck in the flood.

“The good news is they weren’t in danger,” Assistant Fire Chief Tim Dorsey said.

The department said 43 cars were in flood waters, and they responded to 50 storm water related incidents.

Sarasota County Emergency Management had reports of more than 100 cars stalled on flooded roads.

Public works officials called it a thousand year storm.

“It does show us where some weak spots are, but it was a unique event,” said Spencer Anderson, director for Sarasota County Public Works. “For it to occur as early in storm season as it did, it does help us know where we need to tweak some things in the future.”

Future storms could be much closer than we know.

“I was teasing yesterday at work, I go ‘this is practice for the hurricanes.’ And maybe it is,” Terry Geyer said.

Anyone who experienced residential or commercial flooding is asked to report it to floodinfo@sarasotaFL.gov .

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