Mayor Connors opened the Oct. 28 City Council meeting by describing the flash rainfall that began Oct. 26 and declaring a local state of emergency for Titusville on Oct. 27 to enable faster response and access to resources.

The city manager told the council that roughly 15 inches of rain fell in a six-hour period — an event the National Weather Service characterized as a 1-in-500-year storm — and that the city’s operations had been heavily taxed but functioning. Staff reported water intrusion at City Hall, the City Hall Annex, the Harry T. Moore Center and the fire department headquarters. Of the city’s 104 lift stations, 53 triggered high-level alarms and 24 remained on alarm during the briefing; the South Street lift station experienced a 12,000-gallon raw wastewater overflow and the master pump station reported a 60,000-gallon raw wastewater overflow. City staff said the treatment plants were handling roughly 17 million gallons of wastewater per day, about 3.8 times normal flow.

Officials said crews are monitoring outfalls and containment; the city has accepted mutual‑aid assets from neighboring jurisdictions, including vacuum trucks, and coordinated with Brevard County and state partners. The mayor said the county had not yet declared a regional emergency, which limited the city’s ability to access some state-level resources and slowed pathways for FEMA individual assistance until higher declarations occur.

Multiple residents described severe neighborhood flooding during public comment. A Maryland Avenue resident said entire streets reached waist height and multiple homes belonging to elderly residents sustained interior flooding and drywall damage; another resident described being trapped in waist‑deep, night‑time flood water and said emergency responders were stretched thin. Residents and a property owner from Country Club Heights described persistent drainage problems tied to clogged ditches or undersized/outdated conveyances and urged urgent maintenance and stronger development controls.

In response to the storm and recurring drainage complaints, council members discussed the city’s outdated stormwater master plan — last fully updated in 1966 with later addenda — and the need for a comprehensive, citywide reexamination of drainage, flood mitigation and infrastructure priorities. Council directed staff to return with an advisability item to hire an outside consultant to produce a new stormwater master plan and, separately, unanimously approved a motion to prioritize staff work on revising the comprehensive plan’s future land use language for wetlands and to explicitly include stormwater/flooding as a top priority for that effort. Council members said they expect consultants and staff to coordinate the stormwater master plan with ongoing resilience grants and a separate Saint Johns Basin assessment, and to return with scopes, budgets and timelines.

City staff emphasized that some areas are being handled as immediate repairs while longer-term planning and possible code changes would follow. Officials also reiterated procedures for residents seeking assistance and said they would continue building and damage assessments in the coming days.

Ending: Council members and staff said they would press state and federal partners for recovery resources and return with proposed consultant scopes and funding options for a comprehensive stormwater master plan and with proposed code or comp‑plan language changes to reduce future flood risk.