Downtown deluge

Your Home Sold Coldwell Real Estate Services is shown surrounded by sandbags on Southwest Broadway Street where flooding occurred recently after heavy rain and thunderstorms in downtown Ocala on Aug. 19, 2025. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette]

Two small businesses in downtown Ocala experienced significant flooding on Aug. 15 after a weather station recorded 4.25 inches of rain in just over two hours, but a city official said this was an unusual event, not a recurring issue for the area.

Ocala Public Information Officer Greg Davis said the flooding at The Gathering Café, 306 SW Broadway St. and Serendipity Boutique, 304 SW Broadway St., occurred during an unusually intense storm from 7:35 to 9:40 p.m.

“For perspective, a 10-year storm produces 6 inches of rainfall over 24 hours. Downtown received nearly that amount in just two hours and five minutes,” he said, emphasizing that this deluge overwhelmed the city’s stormwater system, which is designed to handle less intense rainfall.

According to NOAA and the National Weather Service, a “10-year storm” is a storm event with a specific magnitude and duration that has a 10% chance of occurring in any given year. Davis confirmed that the stormwater infrastructure, built to manage a 10-year storm, could not cope with the rapid rain accumulation, leading to widespread flooding.

“Our streets and underground storm systems are built to manage a 10-year storm,” he said. “Instead, we received nearly that entire volume in a fraction of the time. Because of this, the system was overwhelmed.”

Davis also pointed out Ocala’s “strong record of stormwater management and flood risk reduction.”

Davis further noted that Ocala, rated a class 3 community in FEMA’s Community Rating System, ranks among the nation’s best for flood risk reduction, offering residents a 35% discount on flood insurance premiums. According to fema.gov/floodplain-management/community-rating-system, the CRS is a voluntary program under FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program that incentivizes communities to adopt floodplain management practices beyond minimum federal requirements

Despite this, no specific upgrades are currently planned to address downtown flooding. The city maintains a “continuous improvement” approach to enhance stormwater systems and further reduce flood risks, according to Davis.

For residents and business owners concerned about protecting their property during storms, Davis encouraged everyone to maintain flood insurance.

“Even if your property is not located in a designated high-risk flood zone, flooding can still occur during severe or unusually large storm events,” he said.

The city continues to prioritize flood mitigation to safeguard businesses and keep insurance costs low, Davis said.

“We are always working to strengthen the system, expand capacity and exceed flood mitigation standards. These efforts help improve our CRS rating, reduce the community’s flood risk and keep insurance premiums as low as possible, making it more likely that residents maintain coverage for unexpected severe events,” he said.