SAINT AUGUSTINE, Fla. — When it rains in St. Augustine, streets often flood. In the last few years, streets are also flooding even when it doesn't rain.
The City of St. Augustine is working in neighborhoods to help alleviate flooding.
"This street does flood," Scott Flax said.
He lives in the Fullerwood neighborhood in St. Augustine, close to the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind.
"A week or two ago it flooded downstream," he said. "All the water gets captured at the end of the street where it's flat."
His street, like many roads in St. Augustine, floods when it rains, and sometimes even when it doesn't rain.
"It's what they call 'sunny day flooding'," St. Augustine Public Works Director Mike Cullum said.
'Sunny day flooding' happens when an extra high tide or when a nor'easter pushes water from nearby rivers and creeks up through the drains in the roads, and then the streets flood.
Cullum said, with rising sea levels, 'sunny day flooding' is happening "12-18 times a year now."
The city has been installing new tide flex valves on the pipes that flow out into the rivers. The Fullerwood neighborhood was the latest to get these new valves and pipes installed.
"So what the tide valves do [is] they close and they don't let the saltwater come up into the streets," Cullum said.
However, if the tide is too high to release all the rainwater from the streets, the water will stay on the streets until the tide lowers.
"We may have some flooding in the street, but it's going to be freshwater," Cullem said. "So the big key here is we're stopping the saltwater from coming up and flooding into the streets during these sunny-day events."
Of course, salt water is not good for cars. It's also bad for the roads. It weakens the structure of the roadways, which costs money to fix later on.
As for Flax, he is waiting to see if these valves will really help alleviate flooding in his neighborhood.
"I want to see it to believe it," he said. "I'm always skeptical until I see what really happens."