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April 06, 2021: Hundreds of Manatee County, Florida residents have had to leave their homes on evacuation orders signed by Governor Ron DeSantis.
A leak in a sewage reservoir threatens to cause the levees to collapse and trigger a catastrophic flood.
Florida has declared a state of emergency.
The flight of people and the mobilization of aid, in this race against time, recalled scenes from films.
The danger is that the wall of water, up to six meters high, could overwhelm more than three hundred homes and dozens of industrial and commercial activities, submerging populated areas.
The alarm also concerned a prison: the inmates were moved to the top floor of the building, while sandbags were placed on the ground floor.
Added to this is the fear of the population of this area sixty kilometers south of Tampa, that the waters contained in the reserve could be toxic, given the high levels of nitrogen and phosphate.
The water appears acidic as black coffee, but the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has ruled out that it can be considered radioactive.
But people don't trust it.
The situation has become dramatic in recent days, but the first alarm was triggered in March, when the authorities found a leak in an old nitrogen production plant in Piney Point and decided to empty the basin, pumping millions of liters of water. water in Tampa Bay.
The reserve contained more than two billion liters of water, now reduced to about sixty percent.
The highways have been reopened after days of lockdown, a sign that the situation is currently under control.
The hypothesis of a new flaw has been denied, but the next few hours will be decisive.
"Our teams - explained the governor - are working to prevent the situation from becoming catastrophic".