A workshop to explore more robust drainage infrastructure is now in the works
By Florence Fahringer
Original Air Date: August 30, 2024
Host: The Sarasota County Commission got an earful about the flooding caused by Hurricane Debbie, but the board went ahead and approved nearly 7, 000 homes on the 3H Ranch. Florence Fahringer has the story.
Florence Fahringer: This past Tuesday, the Sarasota County Commission convened for one of its regular meetings. The first topic of the day was Hurricane Debby. A number of county officials gave presentations which summarized the origins and effects of the copious rainfall earlier this month. They described how projections mostly depicted Sarasota as receiving six-to-eight inches of rainfall. Then, when Debby passed about a hundred miles offshore, she hovered, sending a length of her eye-wall barrelling further south than expected. What followed was a thousand-year rain event — the second one this year. The presenters emphasized that Sarasota’s drainage infrastructure is built to sustain a hundred-year rain event at worst, something they described as one of the highest rain thresholds in the state.
After the presentations were done, commissioner comments were congratulatory and sparse. After that, there were public comments, which revealed a greater dissatisfaction with the hundred-year storm status quo in the face of the increasingly common thousand-year storms. Public commenter Chris Bales sums up the dialogue between the commission and county facilities which had just occurred.
Chris Bales: Planning is supposed to anticipate what’s going to happen, not wait till it happens. I didn’t see a lot of solutions today; I heard what happened.
FF: Other commenters had some solutions in mind, making the suggestion to slow down on developments until the county comes up with a plan of action. Among the most prominent voices were those of Shari Thornton, an independent candidate for County Commission District 3, and Vicki Nighswander, a Democratic candidate for Sarasota County Public Hospital Board.
Shari Thornton: We heard county staff talk about the 100-year storm relevance in planning, and yet we also heard staff talk about the number of storms that far exceeded that just in the past recent history. So, is that really a relevant standard at this point in time to build to, that says that this is safe to do? I think the answer is clear from what we’re seeing on a routine basis with flooding in our areas.
Vicki Nighswander: In front of you right now, we have a reasonable request petition by over 1,200 of your friends, family, neighbors, and taxpayers.
The three requested items are: The comprehensive hydrology analysis. We would like a hydrologist to be hired, not one that is affiliated with any developers or with the county. The second one is, land use changes in vulnerable watersheds should be paused for now until we get some kind of report from the hydrologist. Number three, there was some talk about the wastewater spillage analysis. We’d like to see a prevention plan as well as an analysis done.
FF: After public comments, the commission moved on with the agenda. The last half of the meeting was devoted to development projects; commissioners pumped the brakes on some proposals to rezone parts of the county for development, though they also voted 4-1 to approve seven thousand houses in 3H Ranch.
Almost ten hours later, the meeting came to an end. That seemed to be the end of it, until the following morning. The board met again for a regular meeting, and again, at the top of the agenda, was Debby. This time around, it seemed presenters and commissioners had some responses for questions posed during the previous day’s public comments. The presentation was abbreviated, with only Public Works Director Spencer Anderson present.
Spencer Anderson: So there is absolutely the possibility, the option for the board to define, or institute, an initiative to develop climatologists, meteorologists, get a consultant on board to help develop a different standard for Sarasota County. If that were the intent, something towards a 500-year storm event for our area, on the SWFWMD data is 12.4 inches. What does that mean? I don’t know. We don’t know what that means. It might not turn into anything relatively significant for development. We don’t know if it requires twice the amount of pond size or no more amount of pond size. For Hurricane Debby, we had up to 18 inches of rain in a lot of areas. So, if we were to adopt a 500-year storm event, I’m not sure the outcome would have been much different.
FF: Then, commissioners chimed in. At first, Commissioner Neil Rainford seemed to parrot yesterday’s sentiments, downplaying the severity of the flooding and insisting on the quality of the county’s drainage system.
Then, commissioner Mark Smith signaled a change of approach by suggesting a workshop may be in order. On top of that, in a break from Florida Republicans’ statewide stigma against the concept, Smith even alluded to a changing climate. He didn’t say “climate change” outright, though he did mention the Gulf of Mexico’s warming waters.
Mark Smith: Because I believe with the warmer water, these storms are absorbing more moisture before they hit us. And we’re gonna get more rainfall. And Debbie was a freak storm. It was slow moving, and the tail of that darn thing just dragged across us like no other that I’ve seen, since I’ve been looking at storms. I’m sure for yourself, same thing, that’s what the data shows. So I would like to recommend that to the board to have the administration work on having us do a workshop, and let’s make sure that we’re doing it right. Thanks.
FF: Smith has often found himself in a one-man minority during commission votes; just the day before, his was the lone voice of dissent against the seven thousand houses in 3H Ranch. But in this case, commissioners lined up to echo his call for a workshop — in fact, commissioner Joe Neunder went so far as to double down on the need to address the warming gulf waters specifically.
Joe Neunder: Water temperatures are rising. Our gulf is hot. We all live in Florida; We know these things happen. But to have some qualitative data and perhaps even engage a climatologist — men and women who are exceedingly highly educated in this field — to give their opinions, I think would be advantageous. I consider myself good in my little area of expertise. And then outside of that, I ask for help. And in this case, I think it might be prudent to get some environmental consultant or some climatologist there just to give us some data.
FF: Last to speak was Mike Moran, who affirmed the need for a workshop on the issue. In the same breath, he anticipated that such a workshop would likely take place after his term on the county commission had expired — in other words, it will be months before the county gets around to discussing the possibility of having drainage infrastructure which could handle the increasingly common thousand-year storms. In the interceding months, more thousand-year storms may heighten the sense of urgency; peak hurricane season is upon us, and far across the Atlantic, two nascent storm systems are forecast to organize into cyclones in the coming weeks.
This is Florence Fahringer, reporting for WSLR News.
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