ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The immediate past president of the Shore Acres Civic Association, Kevin Batdorf, has pitched lawmakers on a big idea to install a retractable wall at the entrance of Tampa Bay to protect against storm surge flooding from hurricanes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Batdorf lives in the lowest lying neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Shore Acres, which has experienced repeated flooding from storms in the past five\u00a0 years. Batdorf said he\u2019s constantly looking for solutions to mitigate the rising problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cCreate a floodgate system that crosses from Pinellas County to Manatee or Hillsborough County at the narrowest point that rises 12-to-15 feet high when a storm is coming,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would prevent the water from coming into Tampa Bay and save billions of dollars of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Kevin Batdorf has pitched lawmakers on a big idea to install a retractable wall at the entrance of Tampa Bay
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Batdorf wants the 14 mile long wall to be 12-to-15 feet high to prevent storm surge flooding from hurricanes\u00a0\u00a0
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State Senator Nick DeCeglie said \u201cit\u2019s a great concept\u201d but he\u2019s skeptical it could actually be implemented
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Sen.\u00a0DeCeglie said he\u2019s focused on more realistic solutions which include stormwater and seawall\u00a0infrastructure improvements<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Netherlands, they had a similar situation to us,\u201d he said. \u201cMeaning they were inundated by rising tides, changing climate. So they had their engineers come up with a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
State Senator Nick DeCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, represents District 18, which covers most of Pinellas County. Senator DeCeglie said \u201cit\u2019s a great concept\u201d but he\u2019s skeptical a 14 mile long retractable wall in Tampa Bay could actually be implemented.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething like this would be billions and billions of dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cMy question is immediately, what about the coastal communities? How does the water interacting with a dam, essentially, how does that impact areas North of the Bay? South of the Bay? That water has to go somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeCeglie said he\u2019s focused on more realistic solutions and has been working on a permitting bill this session to make it easier for homeowner to install flood barriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we can actually accomplish in the near mid and long term is infrastructure improvements,\u201d he said. \u201cWhether that be stormwater, whether that be seawalls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Batdorf said he realizes there are big challenges with his idea from jurisdictional, funding and environmental.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s going to be the State of Florida and the federal government that are going to have to come in and do the engineering and frankly, pay for it,\u201d he said. \u201cFEMA’s paying out billions of dollars in claims, there’s money available to stop paying those claims.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are going to be environmental concerns and I get that it’s going to disturb the environment by installing it,\u201d he added. \u201cBut I think it’s going to enhance the environment for sea life. Once it’s built, becomes a natural reef.\u201d<\/p>\n
Batdorf points out Tampa General Hospital and the City of St. Petersburg have purchased an Aqua Fence to prevent flooding and he wants to do the same for residents on a much larger scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis idea is just common sense. If there’s a wall of water coming in, you put something up to stop it from coming in,\u201d he said. \u201cYou see all these other entities putting up barriers to keep water out. Here’s a barrier to keep it out of everybody’s home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Batdorf has announced he\u2019s going to run in the St. Petersburg mayor\u2019s race but has not yet officially filed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The immediate past president of the Shore Acres Civic Association, Kevin Batdorf, has pitched lawmakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[276,2968,7088,115,596,277,135,137,136,835,221],"class_list":{"0":"post-168521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-hillsborough-county","9":"tag-josh-rojas","10":"tag-manatee-county","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pinellas-county","13":"tag-public-safety","14":"tag-tampa","15":"tag-tampa-headlines","16":"tag-tampa-news","17":"tag-vod","18":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}