Serious weather does big damage in Pensacola

by Ally Doty

When it rains, it pours. And pours. And pours. 

And it’s safe to say it poured incessantly in Pensacola the night of April 29, and the record-breaking amount of rainfall caused serious damage to the community, including some parts of Pensacola State College.

Saleem Krichi, a sophomore at PSC and SGA president, was at the Pensacola campus for his finals on Tuesday when flooding forced him to stay at the school overnight.

“I was stranded at building 8 with 10 other people after my father tried to come pick me up, but the closest he could get was Cordova Mall,” he said. “When I tried to walk over, the water came to my knees and I didn’t feel safe, so I went back.”

PSC Public Safety kept the building open for anyone who was stranded.

“They gave us full access to the building and let us stay as long as we needed to. I would like to commend them for their efforts,” Krichi said.

The night wasn’t easy for those who stayed, though.

“It was a restless night of surfing the web to stay pre-occupied. I had two hours of sleep and came home to a mess,” Krichi said.

Once the rain subsided Wednesday morning, he was picked up at 8 a.m. and taken home where there was three inches of water in his house and their SUV had collapsed in a sink hole.

“They haven’t been able to pull the SUV out yet, but we are hoping they will soon,” Krichi said Wednesday night. “It was bad, but it could have been a lot worse.”

The Pensacola campus wasn’t the only campus that suffered from the storm either.

“PSC on Warrington campus is a walk in pool,” PSC student Kelvin Lewis said. “My father resides over there, and he saw how deep it was and told me. The damage is bad.”

Lewis was able to get home after his finals on Tuesday; the rain didn’t start until he got home that night.

There was disastrous damage around Pensacola as well.

Scenic Highway, an 11-mile stretch along Escambia Bay, collapsed in several places, taking cars and people with it.

Kyler Whittenberger, a former PSC student who lives off of Scenic Highway, couldn’t believe the amount of damage the rain had caused.

“It’s really devastating,” he said, “especially to my family’s everyday life as well as others who live in the same area. My brother takes Scenic to get to school because it’s the fastest way, but he has to take an alternate route now which will probably take longer and cost him more gas.”

Whittenberger’s home is on higher ground, and he said they didn’t have any direct damage, just some flooding in the neighborhood.

Many actions are being taken throughout Pensacola to help out the less fortunate. Liberty Church took immediate action to help the community.

Liberty Church North Campus spent their Wednesday making and delivering food and drinks to families who have been trapped in their homes or are just in need.

Liberty Church Blue Angel Campus is corralling a team for a large clean-up assembly for Thursday, May 1. They are doing a clean-up for one of the larger churches in the community that was badly flooded.

Tuesday was the rainiest day in Pensacola since it started being recorded in 1880. Officially, 15.55 inches of rain fell in 20 hours and a total of 26 inches of rain fell over a 24-hour period. The previous record for April 30 of 3.06 inches, set in 1918, was shattered by the 11.13 inches received Wednesday, according to AccuWeather.