King Tides flood roads for Brevard residents

King tides are causing some trouble in Brevard County. The Indian River Lagoon is rising, affecting roads right along that river. Homeowners have been dealing with flooding issues there for nearly a decade, and they say nothing's been done to help. Fox 35's Esther Bauer live on Indian River Drive. And Esther, the water is backflowing from the drains near the lagoon, right? So people who live here say when the IRL gets high, like we're seeing this week, it actually starts sending water from storm drains right here back into the street. You can see nothing is really draining in this area and residents want to know why nothing is being done. Getting around Indian River Drive hasn't been easy this week. This week's been a nightmare. Residents living in a nightmare for nearly a decade. In 2016, I found an old email of mine where Brevard County had come out to this drain. They say we need to put a backflow preventer on it. Ten years, no action. Residents say drainage infrastructure improvements would help. Water's supposed to go off land and into the lagoon. In this particular case, the water's coming from the lagoon back up onto the roads and flooding the road with... Saltwater. Salt water is the big issue for drivers who say they have no choice but to go through it and it's damaging their cars. It's scary. He has to drive through salt water. He has to stop and wait for other vehicles to go through. Brevard County sent Fox 35 a lengthy statement on these residents concerns but say it's too expensive to do anything. County officials say an engineering consultant quoted the county more than $40 million to address flooding in this area and an even larger project looking at roadway elevation, utility relocation, shoreline Protection, drainage system reconstruction, property acquisition, environmental mitigation and other supporting infrastructure improvements put another price tag of more than a billion dollars. A spokesperson called it financially infeasible for the county and was shared with the board. And if they can't do it, if they really say, you know what, we don't have the money or resources and they need to escalate it and get help from the federal government. These residents think some help from the feds could cut the county's cost. And while they wait for fixes, better warnings would also help. And just put up signs so residents and other people know that they're driving their expensive vehicles through saltwater. They said no. And since the county said they can't really help them with those saltwater signs, some people plan to make and print their own and just put them up in their yards warning people. We will also be including the county's full statement to us on the Fox local app. Reporting live in Brevard County, Esther Bauer, Fox 35 News.