They thought they were safe — until their Florida complex flooded
Oct. 12, 2024, 1:08 AM GMT+5
After Hurricane Milton roared through, dozens of people had to be rescued from an apartment building in Clearwater that was not in a mandatory evacuation zone.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Two days after Hurricane Milton flooded The Standard at 2690 Apartments, representatives from the company that manages the 16-acre complex showed up Friday and barred tenants from returning to their homes.
“We’ll send out an email blast or text messages to let you know when it’s safe and we can send, like, scheduled times for you guys to come back once they tell us it’s OK, but you cannot hang out here,” Angela Lentsch of Infinity BH told a group of tenants gathered in the parking lot. “You can’t stay here. We just, we need you guys to basically disperse.”
This was not the message the tenants received from Lentsch before Milton made landfall Wednesday night in Siesta Key, some 70 miles south of Clearwater, and roared across the midsection of Florida, killing at least 16 people, swamping thousands of homes and businesses, and doing damage valued in potentially billions of dollars.
"We cannot tell you whether or not you should evacuate or not," Lentsch wrote in an email that tenants received Monday and was shared with NBC News. "Please do what is best for you and your family."
Lentsch also warned residents that Milton could "directly impact our area and may bring heavy rain, strong winds, and potential flooding" and provided some tips on how to prepare for the storm.
The collection of two-story walk-ups just west of Old Tampa Bay is not in a mandatory evacuation zone, according to the Pinellas County information page.
Tenant Jas McCoy, 32, said she found that hard to believe because the development is in a low-lying area that suffered minor flooding earlier this year.
As the storm drew closer Wednesday, McCoy checked and rechecked the county information page for updates, she said.
“I put in my address so many times, up until the storm came,” she said. “It was never an evacuation zone. My whole decision for staying here was off of that."
Before Milton arrived, McCoy said she noticed a maintenance worker boarding up the complex’s leasing office. She asked the worker if he could board up her windows, as well, with wood she had purchased, and he agreed to do so, she said.
“He never did," McCoy said. "My neighbors ended up doing it for me.”
As for the property managers, McCoy said, “They just were out like that. Everyone was gone.”
Then, at around 1 a.m. Thursday, McCoy looked out the window and saw the floodwaters rising and decided it was time to pack up her five children, grab her elderly mother and go.
“Once the flooding started, I just knew I was doomed at that point,” she said. “I was like, this place is not secure enough to withstand something like this.”
At first, she couldn't get out of her first-floor apartment.
“I could barely even open the door because the water was like pushing onto the door so hard. But once we opened the door, the water rose to like here,” she said, pointing slightly above her waist.
Their only alternative was to go upstairs to the balcony of a second- floor apartment, where they waited for five hours to be rescued by boat.
Police at the complex told reporters they rescued at least 500 other residents the same way.
Kelvin Glenn, 43, said he was also caught off guard by the sudden flooding. He said one of his daughters woke him up at 1 a.m. Thursday and told him water was starting to seep into their first-floor apartment through the crack under the front door.
“Due to the simple fact that they said it wasn’t an evacuation zone, it had us in a panic mode,” Glenn said.
Within 20 minutes, the water inside the apartment was up to his waist, he said.
“The water was so cold and so nasty and my kids was in it," he said. "I was just worried about my kids."
Glenn said it was two to three hours before a neighbor was able to ford through the floodwaters and help him get his three daughters, two goddaughters and the boyfriend of one of his daughters out of the apartment and to higher ground.
Another tenant named Sandra, who asked that her last name not be used because of concerns over job security, said she and her husband were also trapped in their first-floor apartment by rising floodwaters.
Sitting on the curb across the street from the complex Friday, Sandra said that in the year they have lived there not once did the landlord warn them there could be flooding.
“Associations will not be responsible for anything,” she said. “They will look out for their interest, not yours."
NBC News reached out by email and phone to Infinity BH, a property management firm based in Bay Harbor Islands, for comment about the tenants' complaints and to get some indication about when and if they will be allowed to return to their homes.
So far, there has been no response.