Valdosta sees more flooding as neighbors recover from Helene

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT

John Lenz and his fiancee have lived in Valdosta for eight years.

Having lived in Florida previously, he's used to heavy storms.

"I personally wasn't worried. I knew that it would just come in so far and then it would stop because there's no waterways close to us."

His family was in for a shock when flash flood warnings came through his messages Wednesday evening.

"Alarm came in and we were woken up by the alarm beeping like it had lost battery power or something we got up and were ankle-deep in water and within an hour he was up to our knees."

As he and his fiancee deal with health challenges, Lenz says he doesn't know what the next few weeks will hold.

"We want to stay, but we can't pile in on my mom for three to six months, so we're going to have to play it by ear and see what we can do."

And Lenz isn't the only one.

Dozens of houses in the Chadwick subdivision are flooded out.

Areas like Inner Perimeter, County Club, and St. Augustine Road saw significant damage.

Dexter Sharper, our state rep, says that on top of leftover debris from. Hurricane Helene, the 9-11 inch floods will make it that much harder to recover.

"Water can't really flow because you have a lot of debris still stacked up. And so it's settled in certain areas, like in some of the neighborhoods that you've never seen this much flooding going on."

All school systems and businesses are expected to reopen on November 8th. In Valdosta, I'm Malia Thomas, reporting for ABC27.