A New Port Richey homeowner’s monthslong flooding nightmare has come to an end after the city traced the source to an abandoned water main that may have been buried since the Eisenhower administration.
Mike Armstrong’s front yard had been flooding repeatedly since February. He believed a leaking city water pipe was to blame, but city workers initially told him there was no pipe beneath his property and suggested the water was instead coming from a natural spring.
Armstrong said city records showed no loss of water in the system, reinforcing the natural-spring theory. But he pushed back, telling crews he had seen the pipe with his own eyes over the years. The flooding recurred at least five times, he said, and each time he called the city, crews would come out and dig about four feet down to look for the source.
The situation escalated to the point where Armstrong and a neighbor resorted to using a pump to divert the floodwater through a hose into a nearby waterway leading to the Gulf. A private plumber Armstrong called for help said there was nothing they could do, since the affected area sits on a city easement.
“I don’t know where to turn. I don’t have any options anymore,” Armstrong said before the issue was resolved.
After Armstrong contacted 8 On Your Side’s Better Call Behnken, city workers returned to investigate. A city spokesperson said crews initially still found no pipe despite multiple rounds of digging.
The following day, however, the city located the source and repaired the leak. According to Armstrong, crews found where water was surfacing from the ground and dug at that exact spot, uncovering a water main that likely dated back to the 1950s or 1960s — possibly serving the road since it was first developed.
The repair finally put an end to months of repeated flooding for Armstrong and his neighbor.
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