Studer Community Institute

Pensacola still pursuing stormwater solutions

October 6, 2014
/ Shannon Nickinson
/ government

The April 29-30 flood caused $14.8 million in damage to the City of Pensacola’s infrastructure. The city has spent $3 million from general funds to begin repairs, while awaiting the long process of reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward knows that for many people, the fix doesn’t seem to be coming fast enough. But he insists that the best response to the historic flooding is one that may take a little more time. “When the storm happened on the 29th, I said we are not going to make ad hoc decisions,” Hayward says. “I know we’re going to take a lot of heat because people are emotional, they’ve lost their homes, they’ve lost their road, many people can’t afford to make the repairs. But let’s do it smart. I feel strongly that we’ve done that.” Indeed, some of the best answers for what ails the city’s stormwater infrastructure may well be outside the city limits. “From day one, I wanted to look at the city and county from a global perspective and look at things to see how we can get the most focus, whether it’s infrastructure, beautification, jobs, whatever it may be,” Hayward said. Hayward says the contract hire of former Escambia County Administrator Bob McLaughlin is a step in that direction. McLaughlin, an engineer by profession who worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has the experience and professional network to help the city and the county work together to leverage funding from all possible sources to strengthen the entire Pensacola metro area’s infrastructure against the next freak weather event. “Whatever we submit, it needs to be to be together,” Hayward says. “That makes our story stronger. It enables us to leverage more money and it needs to be city and county together. “It has to work for all 330,000 people in the county.” Status of repairs Strictly speaking, FEMA only pays to put things as close as possible back to the way they were. FEMA officials review the damages and groups repairs into what are called project worksheets. Those are sent to the city for review. The city OKs them and sends them back to FEMA, which looks at any changes requested. Then FEMA obligates the money. Of the 74 repair projects FEMA made worksheets for, 30 have been approved by the city, 14 have been approved by FEMA. “And then we wait for the money,” said assistant city administrator Eric Olson. The city began work on 62 projects; 37 have been completed. Projects in this loop include: -- Baywoods Gully repairs near intersection of Scenic Highway and Baywoods Drive; cost estimate, $900,000; waiting on FEMA write-up. -- Temporary repairs to Piedmont Road; done, cost estimate $1.2 million. A permanent replacement for Piedmont Road is expected to cost $1.4 million and be completed in spring 2015. -- Spanish Trail pond stabilization near Gaberonne Swamp; completed in May; cost estimate, $277,368; awaiting FEMA reimbursement. Permanent repairs to that pond, including sediment dredging, grading and adding riprap, could cost $825,000 and be completed next spring. -- 20th Avenue and Lloyd Street; temporary repairs were completed in June to the tune of $106,355. Permanent repairs, including new curbs and gutters, asphalt, flume, knee wall and curb inlets, are expected to cost $400,000. No completion date is yet estimated. And now for the future But as repairs go on, Olson says the city is looking at relatively small things that can be done along the way to improve the infrastructure for the future. “FEMA will pay to put it back the way it was, but if you demonstrate there would be benefit to improving it a little, FEMA will pay for that.” Such improvements include installing wider storm drain openings or wider, deeper curbs, or reinforcing the walls of storage ponds that may have only been earthen before the storm with riprap to improve their stability for future events. Olson says there are 12 such projects that he thinks are good candidates for this pool of funding, and they are in the pipeline awaiting a response from FEMA. One example Olson gave of such a project was the Vickrey Center, which would benefit from things like floodproofing the flooring in the basketball court, elevating the HVAC. Another is in the Lavellet neighborhood, where a pond not far from the small park there could be dredged of sediment and then the earthen walls could be reinforced with riprap. FEMA also provides funding to buy homes that have been repeatedly damaged by flooding — repetitive loss, in FEMA speak — and replace them with stormwater projects to help mitigate future damage. The city is pursuing buying some homes — three near F and Lee streets, one near LaLone and a phased plan to buy properties near the 12th Avenue and Cross Street stormwater pond to extend that pond’s capacity — that could fit that effort. Improving existing drainage issues along Florida Blanca and Romana streets — which the city has worked on before as the Aragon development grew — will be expensive. One effective alternative identified by the city’s consultant is $7.1 million. After flooding in Aragon was a problem following hurricanes Dennis and Katrina, as well as a couple of heavy rain storms, the city did more work on the Aragon basin. A final report on that work in 2009 by Hatch Mott McDonald saw the tab at $2,207,654. More improvements in drainage in that neighborhood were on the drawing board back then. A pumping station, which was first proposed in 2005 with a $2.1 million price tag, was deemed too expensive at that time. Hopes to find more money for a pumping station or other improvements were once tied to the 2007 Hawkshaw project, a deal that ultimately failed to materialize because developers said they got caught when the real estate bubble burst. The city recently issued requests for proposals for the Hawkshaw property, but council rejected the $775,000 offer from Whitesell-Green and H&H Building Group as too low. The appraised value of the property is $1.8 million, but it has lain fallow since the first Hawkshaw effort — a joint project of Jim Reeves and the Moulton family — died. Moving on to prevention Obviously, prevention and ultimately increasing the capacity of the stormwater system is the final piece of the area’s recovery. Olson says, though, that “we need to get all four engineering studies back so we can properly model. If we do something upstream ... if that takes away sufficient volume, does that mean we can do a much smaller project at this point (downtown). “We need a comprehensive look at that whole corridor.” One project that shows some promise for the entire system is the Delano Project, something that has been on the Escambia County to-do wish list for some time but lacked funding. The project is in the area roughly north of Hermann Street and the railroad tracks behind the Waterfront Rescue Mission. Delano, too, is a complicated project that would require the acquisition of some land, funding, and other factors, Olson said. “Some preliminary data from (not completed) Longhollow study shows that if (the county) realize their objectives from Delano area we wouldn’t have to do anything at Longhollow,” Olson said. “That’s very preliminary, but that’s the kind of things we are talking about. If you get it right up north, you could really change what you have to do down south. “We don’t want to rush to say let’s do this $25 million project in Aragon and come to find out we could have done a $10 million project at Delano and helped everybody in that corridor. There are options on the table.” City Chief Operations Officer Tamara Fountain says that mitigation money can come from multiple sources including FEMA, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Department of Transportation, as well as local option sales tax and even possibly RESTORE Act funds to improve the area’s stormwater system. “Bob (McLaughlin) is going to help us identify that,” Fountain says. “The prevention piece has to be an up-level conversation and it can’t be a selfish conversation. It does need to be thoughtful and one that we share with our county counterparts.” In the meantime, Hayward says letters to residents in impacted neighborhoods like Aragon and the Piedmont Road area, meetings with county officials including County Administrator Jack Brown, community leaders such as IHMC director Ken Ford will continue, as will updating the recovery section of the city’s website with the engineering studies as they come in. “Every business, every academic’s, every citizen’s opinion (matters),” Hayward says.

Back to Blogs

Pensacola still pursuing stormwater solutions

Recent Posts