With Debby, the Georgia neighborhood has flooded twice since 2016

POOLER, Ga. (AP) — Water began seeping into Keon Johnson’s home late Monday night after Tropical Storm Debby dumped nearly nonstop rain throughout the day.

By Tuesday morning, Johnson’s street was under water and the floodwaters inside his home were ankle-deep. Appliances were flooded, spiders ran in search of dry surfaces. Laundry baskets and pillows were floating around the bedroom where Johnson, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter spent the night.

“We kind of sat on the bed and watched him slowly rise,” said Johnson, 33, who works installing underground cables in the Savannah area.

Looking at the foot-deep water still standing in the cul-de-sac outside his home Wednesday, Johnson added, “I didn’t think this would ever happen again.”

For homeowners on Tappan Zee Drive in the suburb of Pooler, west of Savannah, the watering Debby provided came with a painful dose of deja vu. In October 2016, heavy rains from Hurricane Matthew overwhelmed a nearby canal and flooded some of the same homes.

Located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean, with no streams or rivers nearby, the inland district does not appear to be a high-risk location for tropical flooding.

But residents say drainage problems have plagued their street for over a decade, despite local government efforts to fix them.

“As you can see, it didn’t do anything,” Will Alt said, trudging through the muddy grass that made crunching noises in his yard as the water bubbled around his feet, before crossing the street to talk to a neighbor “It doesn’t happen very often. But when it rains and it rains hard, oh, it floods.”

Debby did not bring catastrophic flooding to the Savannah area as forecasters initially feared. Still, the storm dumped 10 inches (25.4 centimeters) on Monday and Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service, which predicted up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) more on Wednesday. Some low-lying neighborhoods were flooded, including homes on Tappan Zee Drive.

Fortunately for Alt, Debby’s floodwaters stopped coming up his driveway a few feet from the garage. He didn’t live on the street when Matthew hit in 2016, but said the street flooded during a major storm in 2020.

Before Debby’s arrival, soaking rains last filled the street in February, but not enough to damage any homes, said Jim Bartley, who also lives on Tappan Zee Drives.

The house Bartley rents was also safe from flooding. Two doors down, a couple of neighbors were cleaning up the waterlogged belongings in their garage. They declined to speak to a reporter.

Pooler Mayor Karen Williams and City Manager Matthew Saxon did not immediately return email messages seeking comment Wednesday. Pooler City Hall was closed and no one answered the phone.

Johnson was an Army soldier stationed in Savannah eight years ago when Matthew called for evacuation orders in the area. Like many other residents, Johnson left town.

He didn’t buy the house on Tappan Zee Drive until two years later. The flood damage from the hurricane was still all too evident – ​​the previous owner had gutted the interior walls and left the remaining repairs for the buyer to complete. The seller also lowered the asking price, and Johnson couldn’t resist.

“Our realtor didn’t want us to buy the house,” Johnson said. “I was the one who said, ‘You can’t beat this deal.’

Now it is not sure what will happen. He does not have flood insurance, saying his insurer told him the home is not in a flood zone. But he doesn’t want to sell either, like many of the owners on the street who saw flood damage from the 2016 hurricane.

“We have a bad history with it, but the truth is, I’ve sweated so much into it,” Johnson said of his home. “No one else in our family owns a house. So we want to keep it.”

Photo: Keon Johnson and his wife Zyla Johnson. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)

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The Georgia flood