ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The City of St. Petersburg opened all of its waterfront parks just in time for the holidays, as some areas had been closed for repairs after flooding damage from both hurricanes Idalia and Helene.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these parks were inundated with saltwater,\u201d said Barbara Stalbird, Parks and Recreation assistant director. \u201cWhat happened was a lot of the trees had died and all of the sod had died.\u201d<\/p>\n
The\u00a0flooding\u00a0killed about 23 trees and caused drainage problems too, according to\u00a0Stalbird.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Four waterfront parks in St. Petersburg were damaged by hurricanes Idalia and Helene\u00a0
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The cost for the repairs is $553,000, with FEMA picking up most of the tab
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Three parks have been completed:\u00a0Elva Rouse, Vinoy and Flora Wylie\u00a0
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Repairs at Albert Whitted Park are expected to begin next month<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also created compaction with the soil, and so soil could no longer drain,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we had a wetland situation where water would just sit and sit and had nowhere to drain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stalbird said the four waterfront parks most affected by the flooding were Elva Rouse, Vinoy, Flora Wylie and Albert Whitted. The cost to regrade the parks and replace the sod is $553,000. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) picked up most of the cost for the Idalia damage at $415,000. The city and state split the remaining $138,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that everyone loves their park system and we appreciate that support,\u201d said Stalbird. \u201cAnd everyone\u2019s patience during this project. It’s been an important project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stalbird said they had to use St. Augustine grass because FEMA only pays to replace the sod that was in place before the flooding.\u00a0Elva Rouse was the first park to be repaired and was completed in April. The sod removal from Vinoy Park began in June and Flora Wylie \u00a0in October, according to Stalbird.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrading was one of the biggest values of this project, because what we were able to do once the old sod was removed by our staff, we were able to do significant grading so that the water would no longer sit,\u201d she said. \u201cThen the new sod is laid, and it’s able to thrive because of those better soil conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fencing around Flora Wylie park was taken down last week, an early Christmas gift to the community from Parks and Rec.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust in time for people to enjoy it for the holiday,\u201d\u00a0said Stalbird. \u201cWe hope everyone’s able to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident Jenna Sutton, 28, lives in the neighborhood across the street from Flora Wylie Park and said she noticed people weren\u2019t using the grass after the flood damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of dips in the ground. A lot of people play soccer out here and they couldn’t do that anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really affected the way that people just like they do yoga out here in their daily activities. We typically were just doing walks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sutton was one of the first park visitors to enjoy the fresh sod when the fencing was removed from Flora Wylie.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was closed for a while, and I was getting kind of nervous,\u201d she said. \u201cThe grass is open, it’s beautiful and I’m so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
In May, the Trust for Public Land released its 2025 ParkScore<\/a> which ranked St. Petersburg as having the No. 1 waterfront park system in Florida<\/a> and No. 14 among the largest 100 cities in the nation. Stalbid said it\u2019s important to maintain the crown jewel of the city, which is listed as a top priority in the charter.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is very unique. In most cities, you have all the development along the water, which really blocks public use,\u201d she said. \u201cSo our founders were so, so responsible in setting this aside. So that the public would always have it for enjoyment.\u201d<\/p>\n Stalbird said the city has a tree replacement plan and has been conducting a seawall study with plans for a higher wall to further protect the parks from flooding. The last park to be repaired from hurricane damage is Albert Whitted, which is expected to begin next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The City of St. Petersburg opened all of its waterfront parks just in time for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[274,770,3125,2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278],"class_list":["post-96147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-top-stories","tag-community-news","tag-hurricane-helene","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96147","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=96147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}