St. Pete saw serious flooding on Wednesday; neighbors say more should be done

Published: Sep 05, 2024 Duration: 00:03:48 Category: News & Politics

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Thank you a record breaking rain event tonight. That's what officials in Saint Peter saying caused major flooding in the city last night. They say its storm system is not built to sustain that. People who have lived in the city for years aren't accepting the explanation either. No, they're not. That's because they believe it's because of new developments built nearby and T investigates. Jen Titus has been looking into answers for us all day long and where you're standing, Jen right now, 3 ft of water for some of the people in those parts. Yeah, and it wasn't just last night, Frank. It's been the same story for the past couple of weeks. They say anytime it rains and these are people who have lived here for decades. They say they've never seen it like this. One person says she thinks it's because of the clogged storm drains. Look at this, this is completely clogged right here. No water is going through there. And that's why people in these neighborhoods say the city could be doing more to stop the water from staying put, ST Pete police says 55 cars were stuck due to flooding in the Wednesday night rainstorm that rolled through during the evening commute. It's never been like this. Joseph Stern says the streets were inundated with water, including those in the northeast ST Pete neighborhood. He's called home for 20 plus years. I want answers from the city. Why was it never problem in the past? Fred Koger believes it could be from new developments in the area, leaving the water with no place to go. They're putting more into new construction and building more and getting more people into the ST Pete than they are trying to fix the problems that are in ST Pete. We took the concerns to ST Pete's public works administrator. It should not have been contributing any more storm water to this storm than would have prior to this development coming in. Claude Tankersley says the flooding has nothing to do with new development but the fact that their systems are built to handle 7.5 inches in 24 hours. He says some places saw almost five inches in just one hour. We have a brand new stormwater master plan that we're implementing projects on as we speak. What uh what our goal is and and what the industry standard is, is to update those plans every 10 to 20 years. But even so Tankersley says no system would be able to handle that much water in an hour. And even if they could build one, it would cost the city billions of dollars we should look at going back to the concept of building homes that are elevated, something residents say is not a solution. Why can't you fix the problem on your end? So we don't have to spend money to build up and go higher and back out here live. Now. Just this morning, the city did ask Claude Tankersley who you saw there to present to them at the city council meeting this afternoon, what they exactly are doing to help prevent any of this flooding from happening. I also want to tell you guys that we do know that wastewater has made its way into some of the storm drains because again, the systems did get overwhelmed last night, Jen with rain on the way. I mean, it's gonna happen in just what a matter of minutes here. What are people supposed to do? Courtney just continued to report those problems. Go to 311, go to see click fix, take photos and show them things like this. Show them that the storm drains are clogged. They'll take care of that. And we have had a lot of questions about Fourth Street. Fourth Street flooded. Last night, we asked the city, what are they doing? Turns out that street is a state road. So if you have any complaints about that, you have to report to F dot We did ask F dot What they are doing to make sure that that artery does remain open. They say they are out there as well, clearing storm drains to make sure the water stays off the road for now. We're live in ST Pete tonight, Jennifer Titus in Tampa Bay.

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