A Pinellas-wide, multi-jurisdictional flood vulnerability assessment has been completed by the Public Works Department, illustrating the most critical areas and facilities that require adaptation to resist storm surge and damage.<\/p>\n
The study examined four categories of infrastructure: community and emergency facilities, critical infrastructure, natural, cultural and historical resources and transportation and evacuation routes.<\/p>\n
Using these categories, the Public Works Department considered 21 flood scenarios and projected those scenarios over three time horizons: 2018, the baseline for the assessment, and projections for 2040 and 2070.<\/p>\n
The assessment \u201cprovides a road map for prioritizing infrastructure, investments and designing facilities that can withstand storm and flood,\u201d said Public Works Director Kelli Hammer Levy during a Pinellas Commission meeting March 19.<\/p>\n
The assessment\u2019s projections reveal exposure across critical facilities, with emergency operations centers and fire stations among the most vulnerable. Of the 56 emergency operations centers, 12, or 25%, are projected to be significantly exposed to storm surge; of the 66 fire stations, 16 are exposed.<\/p>\n
Police facilities were also vulnerable, with 3 of the 15 facilities exposed, and 74 of the 405 drinking water facilities as well. However, storm shelters are largely insulated from storm surge: of the 26 shelters, none are exposed, according to Public Works data.<\/p>\n
Hurricanes Helene and Milton exposed how vulnerable those facilities are, as St. Pete Beach and Clearwater are rebuilding new fire stations as a consequence of the immense damage those facilities sustained, with officials from other affected facilities seeking to build or overhaul stations to better stave off damage.<\/p>\n
Pinellas is able to stretch its penny for resiliency updates through the Resilient Florida Grant, which disperses $100 million statewide. Part of the necessity of this vulnerability assessment is to ensure Pinellas remains eligible for the grant.<\/p>\n
In the March 19 commission meeting, Levy contextualized how indispensable the funding has been.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur utilities department received over $25 million for the wastewater collection system upgrades for priority mobile home parks and $3.5 million for utility reliability upgrades under Resilient Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic Works received $129,000 toward the living shoreline project,\u201d Levy continued. \u201cThat protects Philippe Park shoreline, $27.9 million for Joe\u2019s Creek Greenway Project and an additional $13 million for the Cross Bayou Canal improvement project.\u201d<\/p>\n
A final vulnerability study will be submitted to the state by the end of March, which will determine if Pinellas remains eligible for Florida resiliency grants. A final adaptation plan, incorporating recommendations from the study, will be submitted in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pinellas-wide, multi-jurisdictional flood vulnerability assessment has been completed by the Public Works Department, illustrating the most critical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-200620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200620","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=200620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}