Lake Bonny and Little Lake Bonny neighbors are watching the water levels as they put up new drywall and install new flooring in their hurricane-damaged homes.
They’re worried that the water hasn’t gone down and the spring rains, along with the 2025 hurricane season, are right around the corner.
“My lake is two feet higher,” Nicole Ramirez told city commissioners Monday morning.
Her home on Little Lake Bonny flooded during Hurricane Milton in October and stayed flooded for weeks.
“We’ve called the city and told them — nobody is listening,” she said, frustrated. “So, somebody needs to figure it out, because we’re all still rebuilding our homes.”
Out-of-pocket: Ramirez and family have put up new, purple drywall and mudded the seams. But they stare out the back window and see water where there was dry land when they bought the home in 2014.
Like some of her neighbors along Honeytree Lane East, Ramirez is also angry that Citizen’s Property Insurance, the state insurance of last resort, denied her damage claim and canceled her insurance, shifting it to another company.
She did not have flood insurance because she was told she didn’t live in a flood zone.
Ramirez has received about $11,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has only covered materials. She hasn’t gotten a penny beyond that from insurance or a charity to help her recover.
Her back porch is filled with construction debris because she can’t afford the fees the city charges to bring out a dumpster.
Neighbors’ woes: Next door, PuroClean trucks sit in the driveway, along with a dumpster, as a neighbor to their east began their first day of restoration work.
Another neighbor hasn’t gotten anything from their insurance company because they must first pay $49,000 to fix a cracked slab, caused when water sat for weeks inside her home.
Another neighbor has taken out a $160,000 loan to repair their home.
City response: City Manager Shawn Sherrouse reminded Ramirez that the city is about six weeks into a four-to-six-month study of what happened during Milton, which saw historic levels of rain drop into already historically high lakes.
They want to make sure it never happens again.
Following the storm, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which oversees lake and river levels, would not allow the city to pump out water any faster from Lake Bonny and Lake Parker, concerned that Bartow’s wastewater treatment facility, which sits on the Peace River, would flood.
Ramirez said they aren’t pumping out enough now and is getting the runaround from city, county and SWFWMD officials as to who is responsible for the pump and the movement of water.
She was told the Peace River is high, but a check on its levels Monday shows it looking normal, particularly after recent dry weather.
The city owns the pump, but the county permitted it in 2014. And SWFWMD only allows a certain amount of water to flow through it each day.
The city recently blocked off a drainage pipe to Lake Parker so they could inspect its interior to see if anything was blocking it.
“It was clear — there was nothing, no obstructions in that,” Sherrouse said Monday.
Code violation: Ramirez also told commissioners that, to add insult to injury, Lake Bonny residents are getting code violation letters from the city. One letter, which was posted on Facebook, states that an inspection of a resident’s property on Jan. 31 determined that he had overgrowth, junk and or open storage on his property.
The letter also stated that Lakeland’s mission is “a community working together to provide an exceptional quality of life.”
Sherrouse said there were four others who were also cited, but not fined.
Charity: Ramirez on Monday begged the city for help. She is seeing Pinellas and Hillsborough County officials doing investigations and giving funding to residents to help them recover.
In early November, when multiple Lake Bonny residents shared their stories with city leaders, Commissioner Mike Musick promised $50,000 through his own charity to help them recover.
Musick also donated to a GoFundMe account run by Misty Wells, but, to date, Musick and his mother are the only two who have contributed a total of $2,600.
Musick said he spoke with two non-profits about having them distribute the $50,000, but was told it was outside of their mission. He is now talking to a third non-profit.
“The distribution of the money after the fact seems to be where it’s a headache because it shows as income and they have to reconcile that at the end of the year,” Musick said.
He and fellow commissioner Guy LaLonde met with Ramirez and her housemate, Courtney Kraft, following the meeting to try to reassure them that everyone is doing what they can.
Ramirez, who has had to file for divorce from her husband in the midst of this, said she is hoping to reach out to Habitat for Humanity to see if they can provide her with some help with the renovations.
“Nobody is showing up to help me, showing up to help any of us,” she lamented.
Kimberly C. Moore is a reporter for LkldNow, a nonprofit newsroom providing independent local news for Lakeland. Read at LkldNow.com.
