The Brief<\/p>\n
Tampa acquired a new $650,000 spyder excavator to clear stormwater ditches and reduce flooding risks across local neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Hydraulic legs allow the specialized machine to reach steep slopes and tight spaces standard excavators cannot access.<\/p>\n
Crews have regraded eight miles of ditches this year, doubling last year’s progress as part of a seven-year system plan.<\/p>\n
TAMPA, Fla. – The City of Tampa is upgrading its stormwater equipment with a new Spyder machine designed to expedite ditch clearing and maintain its stormwater system.<\/p>\n
Tampa stormwater equipment upgrades<\/p>\n
What we know<\/p>\n
City officials say City council approved $650,000 in funding to purchase a second Spyder excavator. The city will have two machines in operation, but explains that the original Spyder machine is aging.<\/p>\n
The Spyder has hydraulic legs and specialized wheels that stabilize the excavator on steep slopes and tricky ditches that a standard excavator cannot reach easily.<\/p>\n
City officials say Tampa has about 200 miles of stormwater ditches.<\/p>\n
They say grass clippings, yard debris and trash can clog the ditches and cause the stormwater system to overflow when there’s a lot of rain.<\/p>\n
By cleaning out these ditches, it creates a clear drainage line from local neighborhoods to prevent water from overflowing and flooding areas.<\/p>\n
Tampa ditch regrading project<\/p>\n
By the numbers<\/p>\n
City crews have regraded 42,000 feet of ditches so far, which equals about eight miles.<\/p>\n
The city says that’s more than double the amount of ditch grading completed last year.<\/p>\n
The city aims to regrade its entire 200-mile stormwater system within seven years.<\/p>\n
Officials noted that any major storm can overwhelm drainage infrastructure if ditches remain blocked.<\/p>\n
Local flood prevention efforts<\/p>\n
What we don’t know<\/p>\n
The city hasn’t indicated whether additional machines will be purchased in future budget cycles.<\/p>\n
The Source<\/p>\n
The information in this story was gathered from a news conference with Tampa city officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief Tampa acquired a new $650,000 spyder excavator to clear stormwater ditches and reduce flooding risks across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15691,145736,94616,135,64277,137,136],"class_list":["post-357136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-city-officials","tag-steep-slopes","tag-stormwater-system","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-city","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357136","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=357136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}