Neighborhoods – Page 3 – West Boca News

SWAT Team in Mission Bay

Update: Readers tell us the situation has resolved safely, though it will take an hour or more for life to return to normal.

Several readers notified us of heavy police activity in the Harbour Springs and Baybreeze section of Mission Bay, west of 441 on the south side of Glades Road.

There is some indication from the Sheriff’s office that a man is a danger to himself, intoxicated, armed and he has locked himself in his home. Readers have reported to us that they’ve seen as many as 15-20 police cars. One reader said 30 cars, and multiple readers mentioned the SWAT team. Some residents may have been evacuated. Two readers told us that police told them to stay inside their homes due to the danger of gunshots.

We also received this from Palm Beach County Alerts:

***WEST BOCA*** BARRICADED SUSPECT — Harbour Springs @ Mission Bay (address withheld for officer safety & scene integrity) — ‪#‎PBSO‬ & ‪#‎PBCFR‬ onscene of a domestic incident, suspect refusing to comply w/ orders, PBSO trying to evacuate area houses, SWAT & K9 onscene

We will update this story as we learn more.

9-Foot Gator in Boca Winds

A reader sent us several photos of an alligator in one of the lakes in Boca Winds. The lake, in the Ashley Park subdivision, is near the Loxahatchee canal on the southern border of the county and toward the far west end of West Boca (south of Palmetto Park Road).

Here’s a few pictures from lake in Ashley Park after the “Environmental
Capture and Release” crew caught a 9′ gator outside our back door this
morning.

Here are a few more shots:

And here’s one more:

Lightning Hits Boca Falls House

A house in Boca Falls was hit earlier today by lightning, bringing out both neighbors and Palm Beach Fire Rescue. We popped over to the Mystic Bay subdivision to take a few pictures.

We counted at least six vehicles from Fire Rescue including two SUVs and four trucks. There may have been two additional trucks as well. One fireman was working on the roof, possibly looking to see if the lightning had caused anything under the tiles to ignite or smolder.

The team also worked inside the garage:

This is the third incident we’ve heard about in the past few months of lightning hitting houses in Boca Falls, a community with roughly 720 homes.
Neighbors definitely appreciated the response from county.

Fran Reich Preserve – New Google Satellite Image

We previously wrote about the Fran Reich Preserve, a large piece of land at the far west end of West Boca. This morning a reader tipped us off that Google has updated their satellite image of the area. You can see the latest one above, and the previous image below:

We see two changes highlighted with arrows. First, south of the preserve in Parkland you can see a new development being built just west of University Drive. That’s Lennar’s MiraLago at Parkland, with townhouses starting around $400K and single-family houses starting around $500K.
Second, there are changes to a work area not far from the end of Palmetto Park Road. It’s hard to tell how substantial that change is from a satellite image and without knowing what they’re doing.
You can see it for yourself in the embedded map from Google, below:

10-Foot Gator Removed: Shores at Boca Raton

A reader (and personal friend of WBN) sent us two pictures of a 10-foot alligator removed today from a lake in the Shores at Boca Raton. The neighborhood is just north of South County Regional Park, at the west end of Yamato Road. We believe it was one of the interior lakes.

Here’s another shot of the gator as it’s being pulled out.

And here are more photos from two readers:

We’re now told the actual measurement was 9.9 feet.