ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Hurricane Ian put some floodproofing techniques to the test in St. Augustine. Since hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Irma in 2017, the city has implemented ways to keep rising water at bay.
First up: the wastewater treatment plant. It flooded during Matthew. Since then, temporary five foot barrier walls were built and can be installed around critical parts of the plant before a storm.
St. Augustine City Manager John Regan said those walls worked and were "fantastic." The wastewater treatment plant remained dry. The walls really were not put to the test that much with Ian because "in this case, we didn’t have a lot of surge around the plant," Regan said.
Also, there are lift stations all around the city. They direct sewage water to the wastewater treatment plant. In Matthew, many of the lift stations flooded and stopped working, sending sewage into homes and roads. Since then, the City of St. Augustine, with FEMA money, has elevated and advanced many of the lift stations. And they worked during Ian, Regan said. "The did what they were designed to do."
Days before Ian impacted St. Augustine, city staff also tried out a new inflatable tube called a Tiger Dam. The goal was to add two feet of height to the low section of the downtown seawall. However, that did not keep the water out.
Regan said, “It didn’t do well when the water was outgoing. There wasn’t enough structural support to it and it flopped around. It wasn’t very successful."
In the Davis Shores neighborhood, a relatively new sea wall along with larger pipes installed at a creek at Coquina Park were aimed at reducing flooding. Regan said, "It protects to a certain level, but when the surge is higher than all the land, seawalls and it's behind houses, this neighborhoods floods."
Many homes in the Davis Shores neighborhood did indeed flooded.
"But," Regan added regarding the addition at Coquina Park, "does it keep the street from flooding again and again through days of high tide cycles? Yes it does."
There are lessons to still learn, especially when there is heartache in hundreds of households that lost their belongings to the floodwaters inside their homes.
Regan was asked, "What are you walking away this time, saying, 'Next time, we’ve got to do this?'" He answered, "Next time we have to work more on the evacuation. We have to work harder on these grant applications to elevated homes to be more successful, and we have to work harder on the practical tools to safeguard their homes."