MIDDLEBURG — Homeowners living along Lazy Acre Road and Red Bug Alley were awakened the morning of Aug. 6 to the Black Creek lapping at their front doors. The surge was due to Hurricane Debby which passed through the night before. 

Many of the houses along Black Creek are built on stilts. During gales of wind and torrential downpours, homeowners scrambled to move valuables to the second floor or to higher ground as the waterline advanced underneath. 

Black Creek is known for its dark, murky color attributed to the high concentrations of dissolved tannin, which gives the water an auburn hue along the edges in the sunlight. 

Water from Black Creek flooded 19 feet, or about four feet over the road. 

A homeowner named Tom Morris and his family trudged through the flood water to their house, carrying Domino's pizza boxes for lunch. 

"No, I don't think the pizza delivery driver would've wanted to come through here," Morris joked. "I don't think we'll be expecting any Amazon packages, either."

Morris maintained a positive attitude throughout the ordeal. The flooding wasn't as bad as Hurricane Irma in 2017, he said.

Morris' house is built along a horseshoe-shaped curve of the Black Creek. When the creek floods, it usually cuts through the middle, so Morris said he's able to enjoy his own "private island" as consolation.

A homeowner named Buddy stoically moved a smoker and a grill to higher and drier ground, a mound in his front yard. He said the Black Creek spilled over the bulkhead onto his property at about 10 a.m.

"It's gotten extremely worse since then," he said. 

His house did not flood during Irma. However, it did during Debby. 

"We were on the bad side of the storm. Everything from Jennings Forest floods to the Creek. We got water coming from every direction with nowhere to go," he said. 

"We're not worried about anything inside the house or any water getting into the house, just everything underneath the house we have to move. We're trying to get everything up as high as we can."