EUSTIS, Fla. — A popular farm in Eustis is making repairs after Sunday night’s storm caused lots of damage.
The owners of Amber Brooke Farms, Michael and Brooke Hill, say they were caught off guard by around 19 inches of rain that damaged their property.
“It is a bad feeling. You’re like a sitting, squatting duck. You feel helpless,” Brooke Hill said.
Michael Hill said how the retaining wall collapsed, saying, “All the rain came so hard so fast, that the hydro static pressure just collapsed it and moved the dirt all the way across.”
Michael Hill says it caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
It also destroyed their baby sunflower crops.
“There’s no sight of them anymore, they are gone, but we will replant those fields,” Brooke Hill said.
FLOOD COVERAGE
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Around 20% of their strawberry crops were also destroyed. It took Michael Hill by surprise.
“I’ve been here my whole life. I’ve never seen anything like this outside a hurricane. Honestly this is worse than Milton last year,” he said.
Michael Brooke wishes someone would have warned them about the storm. He said. “If we had known the rain was as bad as it was, we would have moved some equipment, got the furniture out of the way, put up sandbags.”
We contacted the National Weather Service, but no one got back to us.
The couple is determined to get ready as Fall Festival continues.
“We’re hopeful we’re gonna have everything ready for this weekend,” Brooke Hill said.
We contacted the National Weather Service about the lack of warning time. A spokesman released this statement saying:
A low-level frontal boundary, in combination with deep atmospheric moisture and a passing upper-level disturbance, produced isolated instances of extreme rainfall rates in slow-moving thunderstorms across east central Florida on Sunday evening.
Forecasters began highlighting the threat of excessive rainfall in the morning with their forecast update and eventually issued a flash flood watch at 12:40 p.m., nearly six hours before the start of precipitation in Mount Dora and Eustis.
Here is a timeline of events:
- 12:40 p.m. | Flash Flood Watch issued for Lake County
- 6:46 p.m. | Flash Flood Warning (level 1 of 3) issued for Eustis & Mount Dora.
- 8:02 p.m. | Flash Flood Warning (level 2 of 3) issued for Eustis & Mount Dora.
- 9:57 p.m. | Flash Flood Emergency (level 3 of 3) issued for Eustis & Mount Dora.
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