Floodwater has lingered for days in West Palm Beach's RiverWalk community after a one-in-1,000-year rain event, leaving streets nearly impassable and residents stuck in place. Don Gentile called it “an apocalyptic-type event,” saying every street in the neighborhood had some kind of flooding on it.
The reason people are still searching for answers now is simple: the water has not gone away. Michael Hoffman of WPTV went into RiverWalk and found flooded streets, residents unable to go about their normal routines, and an alligator swimming near a home while people described fish and venomous snakes in the water outside their doors.
Bobbi Jo Morgan said, “This is nothing that we’ve seen before,” and that sense of disbelief runs through the community as the flooding keeps daily life on hold. Gentile said he hoped the water would dissipate in the roadways, but he also made clear how widespread it was: every street in the community had some level of flooding, and children could not get to school while the water remained.
That is the part that makes this flood different from a typical storm cleanup. Wildlife can move into places that are usually reserved for cars and families when floodwater sits for days, and in RiverWalk that meant residents were sharing their neighborhood with fish, snakes and at least one alligator while waiting for the roads to become usable again. The unanswered question is not whether the damage was serious; it is how much longer this community will be cut off before the water finally recedes.
