Residents living just outside DeLand off Taylor Road may soon get some relief from repeated flooding.
Volusia County leaders are preparing to vote on a $1 million contract with engineers to design a new drainage system aimed at moving stormwater out of the area faster during heavy rain events.
The area has a history of significant flooding. A home on Taylor Road — which flooded several times in recent years — was purchased by the county and is now slated to become the site of a new pump station. The station would connect to a nearby retention pond, which the county also plans to expand. The hope is that the improved system would protect nearby residents before floodwaters rise again.
John Bailey knows the problem firsthand. His home sits right next door to where the new pump station would be built, and he says it doesn’t take a major storm to cause serious problems.
[WATCH: Volusia County presents potential flooding solutions for DeLand (from 2025)]
“We don’t need a hurricane to flood. A flash flood will flood us. So they need to. Yeah, that would help, I think, and we’re too old to move,” Bailey said.
Bailey says both hurricanes and routine rainstorms have left him stranded in his home before. He isn’t shy about what he wants from county leaders.
“Now, we got rain coming for another week. I mean we may get flooded, but they’re doing nothing. The wheels of government turn slow and it’s money, money, money and new developments. All that water has got to go someplace and we’re down low. So it comes down here. Get the pump put in ASAP… like this week,” Bailey said.
The Volusia County Council is scheduled to approve the engineering contract Tuesday. Under the current plan, water from the pump station would be directed north to Lake Moore. While some neighbors welcome the news, others say the project doesn’t go far enough.
JC Figueredo lives around the corner from Taylor Road and says flooding has plagued the area for nearly a decade. His property sustained significant damage during a hurricane two years ago.
“It’s a very small Band-Aid over a huge issue,” Figueredo said.
He believes the county needs to take a harder look at new development in the area before the flooding situation worsens.
“I think when you know that there’s a problem, you need to kind of pump the brakes on what you’re going to start doing in that area — as in new development. They’re doing the same story over and over and over again in this area — the same fill-and-build developments: the engineers, the site planning and the what’s in the boundary ports. I mean, all that stuff needs to be studied a lot more intensely from what they’re doing,” Figueredo said.
The $1 million engineering contract is not a final design, but rather a starting point. It goes before the Volusia County Council at Tuesday’s meeting.