Brevard County officials warn of hidden hazards as water recedes

Fox - 35 Orlando
8 followers
Nov 3, 2026
We appreciate you, Jess Brooks. Thank you.
We do have some breaking news this morning coming out of
Palm Bay. Police confirm a search
for a missing driver has ended in tragedy after crews found
an adult man deceased. Yes, some areas there,
of course, like we said, saw nearly an entire year's
worth of rain in a single day. Two feet.
Can you imagine? It's just it's hard to even wrap your
head around that number. Amanda Ruiz joining us live right now.
And Amanda, we just heard from
Mr. Hayes, of course, in that neighborhood praying for him.
And now it looks like they're they're
They're gonna start that long road to recovery.
Yeah, Mr. Hayes has lived here since 2004.
He's the owner of that house right there and the owner
of the four cars that have fallen into basically what used
to be the road. It's now a giant ditch.
He said that he's going to create a GoFundMe,
so hopefully our viewers can help him out with that.
We want to give him as much help as we can
because he says insurance has been giving him the
runabout, but he says he's still going to be pushing.
This road right here, they just said
He said that the road is closing now.
Last call, it's going to be closed for about five to six
hours. You could see that excavator right there.
They are working on the road as we speak. Right
now, we saw that they just moved that palm tree over there.
They moved some sand over here. But
again, a lot of people are panicking right now.
This is a one road out of this neighborhood
that's got a lot of houses in this area.
They say that this is the only way out,
so they don't know what to do. They can't drive out,
but they've been walking out. We see a
You can see someone walking down.
I don't know if my photographer, Nick, is in a good vantage point,
but there's two people that are walking down the road right now.
They got groceries, it seems like.
So they're just seeing, I mean, they say five to six hours,
but you can't really guess this.
This road is completely caved in.
I don't know if we have video that we could pull up right now
to really show you just how bad this road.
This road is broken into pieces.
What once used to be two-way in, one-way in, one-way out, is now...
Ditched in pieces are all scattered around this area
and we talked to Mr. Hayes just a half an hour ago
and he said that he was inside with his family.
He heard the storm come in, had no idea it was going to be this bad.
He heard boom here long, loud concaves.
He had no idea that was his driveway literally breaking into pieces.
Take a listen to what he had to say. It's quite heartbreaking.
I was just making a cup of coffee about to go to work
and then I heard like a loud crack. So I went to go look out
my back door and then that's when I noticed that the
The canal had broke and it broke through my fence
and it just started flooding my house,
so I just ran and get all my family and animals out.
I don't know because we
don't even have transportation or nothing,
so just got to see what happens.
mr hayes tells me that his family
and him are now staying at a nearby hotel but this is their home
they say that they're they're completely
heartbroken why they don't have flooding
inside the home the outside
is a totally different story this is pretty bad damage
that we've seen here in Palm Bay
and again like if you see water that's still standing
and hasn't receded yet you need to be safe
because it could look like this road right
here and you don't know what's inside
the debris the different contaminants also
Power lines that could be here.
They're gonna be working on this road
for what Palm Bay police said, about five to six hours.
And again, one way out, one way in.
So these people are trapped.
If they decide to stay on that side,
that's where they're gonna be staying
for the next few hours.
We'll be sure to keep you updated on this,
but again, it's a heartbreaking situation.
People say that this whole road was full of water.
It covered those cars that are over there,
all the way to the top.
We have pieces of fence that have been blown all the way.
around. We have pieces of cars that have been flown all the way around.
This is just a terrible
situation. Again, people have said
that they haven't seen damage like this ever, even when it
comes to hurricanes. So we'll be sure to keep you updated.
But right now, they told us to move back
and they are working on the road as we speak.
But guys, I'll send it back to you in studio.
Oh my gosh.
