Collier County residents clean up yards soaked by recent storms

NAPLES, Fla.- Communities in Collier County left underwater by constant rain continued cleaning up on Friday from severe flooding that soaked Southwest Florida.

“There’s still a lot of water laying around,” said Lorne Rock, a former resident of the Marco Naples Carefree RV Resort on Barefoot Williams Road.

Rock left the RV park partly because of flooding issues, “I had water in the trailer once, about two or three inches into the trailer,” but he drove over on Friday to check on friends.

RV owners battled heavy rain for days, saying it was too much too fast. The water caused access roads to flood, leaving people to build makeshift walkways out of cinder blocks or planks of wood to get to their homes.

“I was surrounded by water but everything was good anyway,” said another RV park resident.

On Friday, street sweepers were out removing the water and mud while owners did the best they could to tidy up their yards. Although they didn’t sleep much and are still cleaning up, some are thankful the flooding wasn’t any worse.

“I think in Florida there have been some places that had much more water than we had,” said Gerard Pelletier.