Flooding concerns in West Palm Beach neighborhood

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — The combination of the tropical wave and king tides may bring flooding to South Florida this weekend.

In one neighborhood, the flooding gets so bad, residents are worried and say the city isn’t doing enough to keep the streets dry.

Streets in the Northwood Shores neighborhood turn into lakes when it rains.

It’s been a reoccurring problem for more than 10 years.

“For the first 48 hours after it rains and the streets are flooded, it reeks of raw sewage and it smells toxic. It even smells toxic inside our homes,” one resident said.

Northwood Shores Neighborhood Association President Carl Flick continues his charge ahead of the stormy weekend forecast.

He wants the city to redesign and reconstruct North Flagler Drive between 29th and 42nd streets.

“It’s scary to be a part of a rainstorm now for a lot of the residents,” Flick said. “We have people that plan their day based on the rain because they can’t leave their residence.”

He says the city purchased this property for $3,000,000 to build a retention pond that would drain the water, but he says this temporary fix isn’t working.

Assistant city administrator Scott Kelly plans to add a large pipe to avoid this wet mess.

“Without purchasing the property without tearing down the home, because we, physically, had to tear down this, without doing that, we wouldn’t be able to install the pipe that’s necessary to drain the area,” Kelly said. “It was necessary that we had to do that.”

Kelly tells CBS12 News the city is completing the final engineering study for the area. They are in the process of hiring a design engineer.