14-05-2025
St. Pete leaders discuss infrastructure and storm preparedness ahead of hurricane season
The Brief
St. Pete leaders spoke at the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility on Tuesday about improvements they're making to infrastructure and storm preparedness.
Hurricane Helene's seven feet of storm surge forced city leaders to turn off power to the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility to protect the plant and its employees.
Hurricane Preparedness Day is on Saturday, May 31, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Willis S. Johns Recreation Center.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla - It's news no one wants to hear, especially as many are still recovering from last year's hurricanes, but this year's hurricane season starts in less than a month.
On Tuesday, St. Pete leaders spoke at the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility about improvements they're making to infrastructure and storm preparedness.
Mayor Ken Welch called it ground zero for some of the most important infrastructure projects that are underway and are now expedited after last hurricane season.
The backstory
Hurricane Helene's seven feet of storm surge forced city leaders to turn off power to the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility to protect the plant and its employees. The storm also took out four out of five of the plant's generators.
What they're saying
"When these neighborhoods evacuated, our employees couldn't," Claude Tankersley, the city's Public Works Administrator, said. "They had to stay here until the last minute and then escape through floodwaters to try to save themselves."
Hurricane Milton, with a projected 15 feet of storm surge, then forced them to shut down the Northeast Plant again and the Southwest Sewer Treatment Plant. Both are in evacuation zone A.
Tens of thousands were told to avoid taking showers, doing laundry or flushing toilets.
According to Craven Askew, the Chief Plant Operator for the Northeast Plant, they were able to recover the plant 8-to-10 hours later.
"Our staff worked aggressively to protect these sites and equipment," Mayor Welch said. "Still, despite their efforts, some services had to be temporarily suspended so we could avoid extensive long-term damage and initiate repairs. That's not a situation we want to be in again," he said.
READ: Pinellas leaders to weigh plan for $813M in hurricane relief funds
Mayor Welch highlighted the St. Pete Agile Resilience Plan, or SPAR, Tuesday.
It began after last year's storms, and is an accelerated approach to strengthening the city's infrastructure, ensuring long-term resilience.
The current plan anticipates advancing at least $545 million in additional investments across the five-year capital improvement plan. In the last nine years, the city has invested almost $1 billion in funding resiliency projects.
Many of the improvements are either nearing completion or will be done by the end of the year, the mayor said. He said they're also looking at more ways to fund more improvements faster.
"A core part of that focuses on our water reclamation facilities, critical infrastructure that was pushed to its limit during last year's storms," Mayor Welch said.
After last year's storms, city leaders chose existing water reclamation facility projects to accelerate and complete ahead of the 2025 hurricane season. They include flood-proofing critical buildings by deploying flood barriers and applying a durable waterproof coating to exterior walls, installing an AquaFence at Lift Station 85 and elevating critical infrastructure.
At the Northeast Plant, they're elevating the platform's generators to 11 feet above sea level, and building a 15-foot wall around the platforms.
Tankersley said they hope to have it done and have the generators in place by this storm season, but there are no guarantees. He said the equipment is also usually shipped from overseas, and any type of disruption to the supply chain could also slow it down.
"This platform what we're standing on right now is 11 feet above sea level. Now why 11 feet? FEMA recommends when you're in a flood zone, like we are, that you build two feet above the base flood elevation. FEMA sets that base flood elevation. The base flood elevation for the property we're in right now is nine feet above sea level. That's the base flood elevations. You add two feet to that, that's 11 feet above sea level," he said. "This platform will house all of the generators that will run the plant when power is no longer available," Tankersley said.
Tankersley said the platform had been under design and construction for several years. The modifications are part of the $70 million project at the plant. The storms, he said, caught them off guard by hitting before the project was complete. It was supposed to be done by the summer of 2026. Now, they're pushing hard to get it done by this summer.
They're also working on finding a way to remotely operate the plant without having to shut it down before they leave. They hope to have that in place by this hurricane season too.
READ: St. Pete taking proactive approach to hurricane season with resident task force
At the Southwest Plant, Tankersley said a lot of the equipment was raised during the expansion in 2016 and 2017. He said they're planning to do a lot of work on the operations building there for the employees, but it won't be done by this storm season.
The Southwest Plant is in a better position than the Northeast Plant, Tankersley said. He said the plant can handle more than seven feet of storm surge, but less than 15 feet.
The goal is to keep the plants running, but city leaders say with nature, nothing is guaranteed.
"We're doing everything humanly possible, everything fiscally possible to give us a higher level of capacity and resilience," Mayor Welch said.
Helene and Milton were the first times the city has ever had to shut down the plants, the mayor said.
"This is our new reality. That is a new possibility. It needs to be dialed in every year when you're doing hurricane prep, getting your seven days of food and water, understanding that if we get a Milton-like storm, these two sewer plants might have to be shut down," Welch said.
The city is also cross-training its staff so more people know how to conduct storm damage assessments, help with the permitting process and more. They're also adding more pumps to respond to floods ahead of storm season, prepping debris management sites and recovery centers across the city and pre-staging critical resources.
What you can do
You can see a full list of the projects and their details on the city's website.
"Just as the city is preparing lessons learned on our infrastructure and the way we prepare and respond to things, you now have that for your personal preparedness plan," St. Pete Fire Rescue Emergency Management Manager Amber Boulding said. "You can do the same."
St. Pete is partnering with Pinellas County to host Hurricane Preparedness Day on Saturday, May 31 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Willis S. Johns Recreation Center located at 6635 Dr. MLK, Jr. Street North. Experts will be there to help residents look up their evacuation zones, provide information about sandbags and hand out free hurricane kit supplies.
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The Source
Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Kailey Tracy.
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