{"id":446019,"date":"2026-11-03T10:44:33","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T10:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/446019\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T10:44:33","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T10:44:33","slug":"desantis-declares-state-of-emergency-for-flooding-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/446019\/","title":{"rendered":"DeSantis declares state of emergency for flooding in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"James\"Natacha<\/a>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on Monday, which includes DeSoto County, due to flooding.<\/p>\n

According to the executive order, the state of emergency exists in Brevard, DeSoto, Hardee, Highlands, Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie counties.<\/p>\n

The order allows the county and the state to expedite resources to respond to the high water, according to the Division of Emergency Management.<\/p>\n

Since Oct. 31, there has been widespread heavy rainfall across parts of the state, which has brought flooding to some areas.<\/p>\n

When the order was issued, flash flood warnings were in effect for portions of those counties.<\/p>\n

The order is effective immediately and will expire 60 days from the date unless it is extended.<\/p>\n

You can read the full executive order here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Heavy rain has led to severe flooding across several neighborhoods in DeSoto County, prompting school closures and raising concerns about storm drain problems. <\/p>\n

Abel Garcia, a resident of DeSoto County, described the situation outside his home early this morning. <\/p>\n

“It was really bad. My kids woke us up. We woke up my wife, and they said the house was drowning, and like it was really bad,” Garcia said. <\/p>\n

In Arcadia, John Faircloth shared his observations about recurring flooding in the area. <\/p>\n

“Yeah, floods quite a bit,” Faircloth said. “Jared Gross talked about during the flooding on Third Avenue or Fourth Avenue over by the Broad Park, where floods quite a bit. And on Third Avenue, there’s no water flow at all because the culverts get blocked up.” <\/p>\n

A neighbor in the East Imogene Street and North Hillsborough Avenue area, who did not want to be identified, said the storm drains in the neighborhood are a major issue. He explained that the drains easily get clogged and are not wide enough to handle heavy rainfall. He expressed concern about how much worse the flooding could become if a hurricane were to hit. <\/p>\n

“We got to figure out what to do to drain all this water out,” Faircloth said. <\/p>\n

Barriers have been placed at the entrances of some flooded communities, and water levels continue to rise, making it difficult to navigate the affected areas. <\/p>\n

As a result of the heavy rain and flooding expectations over the next few days, all DeSoto County public schools will be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Arcadia officials have been contacted for more information about the storm drain issues.<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on Monday, which includes DeSoto County,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[315,209,211,210,173585,2683,7084,14663,704,104,17435,173583,173584,2927,28,161936,28724,7085,17258,48072,6237,7087,17981,12189,213,1160,718,412,1402,914,18522,221],"class_list":["post-446019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-brevard-county","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-county-emergency","tag-desantis","tag-desoto-county","tag-division-of-emergency-management","tag-emergency","tag-entertainment","tag-executive-order","tag-flash-flood-warnings","tag-flood-emergency","tag-flooding","tag-florida","tag-florida-flooding","tag-hardee","tag-hardee-county","tag-heavy-rainfall","tag-high-water","tag-highlands","tag-highlands-county","tag-indian-river","tag-indian-river-county","tag-late-news","tag-martin-county","tag-order","tag-ron-desantis","tag-st-lucie-county","tag-state","tag-state-of-emergency","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}