ST. JOSEPH COUNTY — Flooding is still a concern for many homeowners. In St. Joseph County, an overflowing pond is threatening homes.

It's been a stressful couple of days for about a half dozen people in the Heather Lake subdivision.

The heavy rains and melting snow made for a dangerous combination, and one neighbor told WSBT News he wasn't going to take any chances.

You can't beat the sites and sounds of Mother Nature, especially when it's in your own backyard.

Just ask Mark Kois.

"Oh, it's absolutely beautiful,” he said.

But this beauty is becoming more bothersome for neighbors. The recent rain and warm weather was just too much for the man-made pond to handle, causing it to overflow into yards.

“Another six inches and we probably would have had been standing in a little water right now,” Kois told WSBT News.

Neighbors knew they had to act fast. They used a park bench, which is now under water, as a way to gauge how fast and how much the water was rising.

"From yesterday morning about 8 or 9 o'clock to about 1 or 2 in the afternoon, it probably rose about two feet,” Kois said. “It went up very quickly."

To help get the water out, the developer put in a pump system.

"Probably pumps somewhere in the neighborhood of 700, 800 gallons a minute,” explained Chief Dale Wallick of the Penn Township Fire Department. “They're actually pumping out of the lake and they're pumping it in back in a retention area in the back part of the subdivision."

Neighbors also took action. They put up sandbags around their homes to keep the water from getting too close to their foundation.

"Yesterday the pastor from Grace Brethren Church who lives across the way, he had the members of his congregation sandbag the front of his house,” Kois said. “And I went over to his home last night about 6 o'clock and asked for help."

And with Mother Nature's unpredictable behavior, Kois says it's always better to be safe than sorry.

"Thank goodness we didn't have to see if it had to work,” Kois said.

Kois told WSBT News the developer's overflow system doesn't work.

The developer says there's a drain pipe that runs within the subdivision. In order for it to work, the water must reach a certain level. In this case it did not.

WSBT News spoke to the surveyor with the St. Joseph County Drainage Board. He says if that's the case, they will go out and lower that level so this won't happen again.