OSCEOLA 360
An Investigative Look Inside Osceola County
A Special Report for The Sun Post News
By Marcos A. Tejeda
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
The Sun Post News
October 5, 2026
OSCEOLA COUNTY, Florida — Four years after Hurricane Ian flooded Osceola County communities, forced residents from their homes and pushed Shingle Creek to historic levels, flooding is once again on the County’s agenda.
Osceola County commissioners are expected to consider seeking approximately $2.5 million in federal funding for additional analysis of the Reedy Creek and Shingle Creek watersheds.
The proposed work has a legitimate purpose:
better understand how water moves through the region;
identify vulnerable roads;
evaluate areas facing significant flood risk;
and compare potential mitigation projects.
But four years after Ian, another question deserves to be asked:
How much more does Osceola need to study before major solutions are actually built?
Because this would not be the first study of Shingle Creek.
And it is certainly not the first time Osceola has identified where flooding occurs.
First, the $2.5 Million Is Not Yet in Hand
An important distinction must be made.
The approximately $2.5 million should not be described as money Osceola County has already received.
The funding request is part of the governmental process.
If authorized, the County would pursue federal resources for the study.
That means:
an agenda item is not an approval;
an application is not an award;
and
a funded study is not a completed flood-control project.
Those distinctions matter when measuring government progress.
Reedy Creek and Shingle Creek
The proposed analysis focuses on two important Central Florida water systems:
Reedy Creek and Shingle Creek.
The work would examine watershed behavior, identify roads vulnerable to flooding and evaluate potential mitigation alternatives.
That information could help Osceola prioritize future infrastructure investments.
But Shingle Creek is not an unknown watershed.
The County has been studying it for years.
Ian Already Showed Osceola What Can Happen
Hurricane Ian provided a real-world test that no computer model could fully replicate.
After the September 2022 storm, Osceola County reported that Shingle Creek reached approximately 64.5 feet in elevation on October 1, then a historic high.
Conditions became severe enough that officials ordered a mandatory evacuation of Good Samaritan Village in Kissimmee.
Reedy Creek also experienced elevated water levels.
Regional authorities coordinated water-management operations as enormous volumes of stormwater moved through the system.
For residents of Good Samaritan, flooding was not a theoretical projection.
It was in their community.
Three to Four Feet of Water
Residents have described areas of Good Samaritan as experiencing approximately three to four feet of water during Ian.
People had to be evacuated.
Federal disaster assistance became part of the recovery process.
And the water did not simply disappear when the hurricane moved away.
Flooding persisted in some areas long after the storm itself had passed.
Four years later, the central question should no longer be limited to what happened.
It should also be:
What has been built to prevent it from happening again?
Osceola Already Has a Shingle Creek Basin Study
This is where the issue becomes more complicated.
Osceola County already has a project known as the Shingle Creek Basin Study.
Its purpose includes improving stormwater management, reducing flooding, protecting water quality and evaluating surface- and groundwater resources.
The study area covers approximately 32 square miles, stretching from the Orange-Osceola county line toward Lake Tohopekaliga.
The project was organized into three phases:
Phase 1 — inventory and problem definition.
Phase 2 — engineering analysis of existing systems.
Phase 3 — alternatives analysis.
The County previously reported that the first phase had been completed, with later phases intended to move further into engineering and potential solutions.
That leads to a legitimate accountability question:
What will the proposed $2.5 million study provide that the existing Shingle Creek Basin Study does not?
There may be a sound technical answer.
But taxpayers deserve to hear it.
The Army Corps Is Studying Flood Resiliency, Too
There is another effort underway.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, working with Osceola County as the local partner, has been involved in the Shingle Creek and Kissimmee River Flood Resiliency Study.
That federal effort is intended to identify measures that can reduce flood risks to residents, property, transportation systems and critical infrastructure while determining which alternatives may be technically, environmentally and economically feasible.
So the public is looking at:
an existing Shingle Creek Basin Study;
a federal Shingle Creek and Kissimmee River resiliency effort;
and now
a potential $2.5 million Reedy Creek and Shingle Creek study.
That does not, by itself, prove duplication.
But it does make coordination essential.
Three Studies Should Not Produce Three Shelves of Reports
The danger with major infrastructure problems is not always that government fails to study them.
Sometimes the opposite happens.
A study is completed.
Then another study begins.
Then models are updated.
Alternatives are evaluated.
Consultants produce recommendations.
More data is collected.
Meanwhile, residents continue waiting for construction.
Technical studies are necessary before governments spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on major water-management infrastructure.
But each additional study should clearly answer:
What information is still missing?
Why isn’t that information available from previous work?
How much will obtaining it cost?
What decision will the new information allow officials to make?
And ultimately:
What physical project will result?
Otherwise, studying the movement of water can gradually become a substitute for actually moving it.
Some Vulnerable Properties Are Already Known
Osceola’s own mitigation planning shows that some areas of concern have already been identified.
Following Hurricane Ian, the County included among its mitigation priorities a proposal involving the potential acquisition of up to 20 homes along Hoagland Boulevard, Marsh Road and Knowles Boulevard, properties associated with the Shingle Creek area.
Planning documents estimated the project at approximately $9 million.
The properties were identified as having flooded during Ian, with documentation indicating they may also have experienced flooding during Hurricane Irma.
The mitigation concept involved acquiring the properties and returning the land to a natural condition.
Another proposal involved potentially acquiring up to six homes on Mill Creek Circle, also associated with flooding during Ian and possibly Irma.
In other words:
In some locations, Osceola already knows where the problem is.
The Flood Maps Are Changing, Too
Flood risk is not static.
Changes in development, drainage and watershed conditions can alter how water moves through the region.
Proposed revisions have also affected flood-risk information involving areas associated with Reedy Creek Swamp and the London Creek Basin, including changes connected with development activity.
That is another reminder that Osceola’s rapid growth cannot be separated from its water-management challenges.
New development changes the landscape.
Roads change drainage patterns.
Parking lots, rooftops and other impervious surfaces affect how quickly stormwater moves.
And flood maps must evolve as conditions change.
That raises another question:
Is Osceola developing faster than it is updating its understanding of where the water will go?
Growth and Flooding Are Part of the Same Story
Osceola County continues to experience intense residential and commercial development.
Individual projects are required to comply with stormwater, drainage and environmental regulations.
But water does not stop at a subdivision boundary.
It also does not recognize political borders between:
Kissimmee;
Osceola County;
Orange County;
St. Cloud;
Reedy Creek;
or neighboring drainage systems.
That is precisely why watershed-level planning can be valuable.
But it also means the results of those studies must eventually influence development and infrastructure decisions.
Otherwise, the County risks studying one version of the watershed while continuing to build another.
The Expensive Part Comes After the Study
A $2.5 million study can produce sophisticated models.
It can produce maps.
It can identify vulnerable roads.
It can rank alternatives.
It can recommend projects.
But none of those things, by themselves, stop floodwater.
Physical solutions may ultimately involve:
larger drainage systems;
channel improvements;
additional water-storage capacity;
control structures;
elevated roads;
property acquisition;
wetland or natural-land restoration;
or much larger regional projects.
Those improvements could cost far more than the study itself.
The $2.5 million may therefore be only the beginning.
Who Will Pay for the Solutions?
That question becomes especially important in 2026.
Osceola County has simultaneously warned that Amendment 3 could significantly reduce future property-tax revenue.
The County has already placed approximately $92 million in capital projects on hold while awaiting the November election.
At the same time, Osceola must prepare for infrastructure and resiliency investments that could require substantial future spending.
Those two realities could eventually collide:
potentially less revenue;
and
increasing infrastructure needs.
Floodwater will not wait for a more convenient budget year.
Osceola Has Not Been Standing Still
It would also be inaccurate to suggest that Osceola County has done nothing since Ian.
The County continues mitigation planning and works with agencies including FEMA, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, South Florida Water Management District and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Its Local Mitigation Strategy identifies and prioritizes projects intended to reduce disaster risks.
The issue is therefore not an absence of activity.
The more difficult question is:
Is implementation moving fast enough to keep pace with both the risk and Osceola’s growth?
Six Questions OSCEOLA 360 Will Follow
If the proposed $2.5 million effort moves forward, OSCEOLA 360 will be watching six things:
1. How much federal funding does Osceola actually receive?
Applying for money does not guarantee an award.
2. Who performs the study?
The public should know the firm, contract amount and procurement process.
3. How does this study differ from existing work?
The answer should be specific.
4. When will it be completed?
A study without a clear timetable can become an indefinite process.
5. What actual projects will it recommend?
The ultimate objective must be physical mitigation.
6. How much will those projects cost — and who will pay for them?
That may become the most important question of all.
OSCEOLA 360
Four years after Hurricane Ian, Osceola County knows considerably more about its flood risk than it did before the storm.
It knows which communities were hit.
It knows which roads are vulnerable.
It knows Shingle Creek reached historic levels.
It knows certain properties have experienced repeated flooding.
It has studies.
It has models.
It has federal partnerships.
And now it may seek another $2.5 million to learn even more.
That additional work may be necessary.
But the ultimate measure of success will not be how many pages the next study produces.
It will not be how many maps are created.
And it will not be how many meetings are held.
The test will be much simpler:
When the next major storm arrives, will the water enter the same communities it entered during Ian?
If the answer is still yes, Osceola will not have only a flooding problem.
It will have a problem bridging the distance between what it already knows and what it still has not built.
