LAKE COUNTY -- Emotions ran high Tuesday when at least 400 people packed an elementary-school cafeteria to talk about how extending the State Road 429 toll road into Lake County would wreck their rural lifestyle and the environment.

The group, mobilizing under the name Rescue Lake County, drew a standing-room-only crowd from Lake and northwest Orange County to Round Lake Elementary School near Mount Dora.

"I want people to feel empowered when they leave here," said Robin Brubaker, a member and organizer from Wolf Branch Estates. "We are not helpless."

In May, Lake County officials allowed the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority to study the feasibility of extending S.R. 429 from Apopka into Lake County. The decision came two years after the commission voted to stop the study, under pressure from another residential group also concerned about increased development harming the area.

After the study is completed, the issue of extending or not extending the road is supposed to come back to the commission for a vote. The toll road would extend from just north of downtown Apopka to at least County Road 44A, north of Eustis.

Many organizers and residents said they began mobilizing this fall after becoming aware of the threat to their way of life, water resources and school systems.

Bryan Douglas, spokesman for the Expressway Authority, said the study is on hold until after the governor-appointed Wekiva committee completes its recommendations about growth-control measures in the Wekiva area and building the proposed Wekiva Parkway in east Lake.