Heavy rain over the past few weeks left rural lands close to St. Lucie’s coast submerged, even before Monday’s flash floods.
Torrents since late September reached new highs in St. Lucie Gardens, a horse-rearing community just east of U.S. 1 and Prima Vista Boulevard.
Approximately 3.47 inches of rain fell in the area Oct. 31-Nov. 1, according to a CoCoRaHS volunteer readout in Indian River Estates. Few other accurate rainfall estimates exist there.
Farms along Tilton Road and nearby dirt trails throughout October took on as much as 13 inches of rain by Friday, according to rough homeowner estimates.
Locals continue to blame construction of the 134-acre Silver Oaks townhouse community, which rests on 36 acres of wetlands, for leaving water standing in pastures. But a $3 million county-built viaduct finished on the plat in late 2024 hasn’t been enough to slough rains.
Two more phases of drainage are due to be built by next fall, county records show. They will carry stormwater to the Hogpen Slough about 2.5 miles down south.
But the waterway has left life difficult for those who sought homes close to “more nature,” said Kari Rohan in an interview Friday.
Rohan has lived along Shanas Trail north of Tilton Road since 2020. “We didn’t know anything about flooding at the time,” she said. Her neighbors by then “built their land up around us because they were having drainage issues.”
Silver Oaks, first built out in 2022, had aggravated drainage issues once managed through farmer-built ditches and trees both invasive and native, said Rohan. More stormwater spilled and stood on the plat’s then “150 acres of dry swamp.”
County intervention, Rohan alleged, decreased over time due to the large “amount of complaints” about Silver Oaks. “(Commissioner) Jamie Fowler said there was nothing we could do, but that they would hold them accountable.”
This left Rohan and neighbors “shelling out money” to repair swales as talk of lawsuits brewed between them. “Everybody had high hopes this was going to be resolved.”
Matt Morley, a Martin County Sheriff’s Deputy, moved to a 2-acre farm along Bobcat Trail, south of Tilton Road, in 2019. His horse pasture rested under a foot of water, same as his neighbors, as more rain pelted the farm Friday.
Flooding was common on his farm, though “never to this severity,” Morley said. “We have nowhere safe for our horses to be; nowhere to eat or even graze.”
He moved to St. Lucie Gardens to balance country and suburban life for his six children, ages 4 to 21. “We gave up a lot to live here,” he said, “but our kids loved being around animals so much.”
Morley’s farm lies near Shanas Trail, a dirt road now considered an “emergency exit” for Silver Oaks, he said. Sheets of water “went both ways” between a retention pond for the community and nearby rural homes.
County officials emailed Morley that morning, he said, about repairing dirt roads made bumpier after previous puddles evaporated. “Then they said they weren’t going to because of rain. A lot of these roads are private roads, so I don’t expect the county to do all that.”
St. Lucie Gardens lies in a highly vulnerable floodplain, according to Federal Emergency Management Administration flood zone mapping. Its drainage often relied on trees in the Savannas Preserve and uncleared lands closer to U.S. 1.
“The area is naturally susceptible to temporary ponding of stormwater runoff,” wrote county spokesperson Erick Gill in an Oct. 19 email.
But the strongest rains this past month outpaced past flooding incidents, some after hurricanes as recent as Milton in 2024. The community saw at least 20.6 inches of rain in October, according to CoCoRaHS.
Around 3.60 inches of rain fell overnight Oct. 1. Reports spread of a calf drowning on the otherwise drier pastures of Tu-Bahd Farms (1100 Tilton Road) within an hour of its birth, according to owner Deborah Kane.
Courtney Santorella, owner of the neighboring Red Gate Gardens (1050 Tilton Road) since 2021, also has contended with poor drainage since Silver Oaks’ construction began. “It is clearly not working,” said Santorella of newer drainage Oct. 8.
Red Gate’s drainage relied mostly on invasive plants, like melaleucas and Brazilian pepper trees. The removal of between “3,000 to 7,000” of these trees, Santorella estimated, to fit The Cove apartment complex directly west turned her backyard into a “creepy hollow” of dead wood unable to take in water.
Doug Krause, Santorella’s brother, is an engineer who moved to Red Gate early this year. “We’re, kind of, ground zero,” he said. Piles of sand fill and retention ponds at Silver Oaks added to the plat’s 4-foot elevation over surrounding homes.
That deepens St. Lucie Gardens’ “water burden,” Krause said. Its farms lie at sea level nearly 2.5 miles west of the Indian River Lagoon. “It’s not easy to move 7 inches of water to the ocean; it might be impossible.”
The rain that opened October stood for over a week, with another 5.09 inches falling Oct. 7-12, CoCoRaHS records show.
Susan Kane, Deborah’s sister and a Shanas Trail homeowner, spent the morning of Oct. 12 crying. “Basically, I’m the new retention pond for people down this road,” Susan said.
Her 1.25-acre home of 13 years sank under “13 inches” of rainwater the preceding weekend. With ruled boards and measuring tape, she measured the water made turgid from kicked up soil, fungus and “fecal matter.”
“That doesn’t collect water,” Susan Kane said of her pasture. The Kanes own approximately 60 “boarder” animals that contracted “feet-rot” and various “allergies” because of the rain.
Both their properties, Susan said, also relied on a “historical ditch” built by farmers to route water south near Dyer Road. Silver Oaks and its new drainage – along with a berm parallel to Shanas Trail – left water “nowhere to go but towards me.”
For now, St. Lucie Gardens will have to wait on new pipes to correct current drainage. “We predicted this long before,” Susan Kane said. “I just don’t know what to do about it.”
Silver Oaks developer Cotleur & Hearing and attached plant surveyor Aquatic Research did not respond to requests for comment.