Palm Avenue condo owners seek flood relief

When Hurricane Hermine passed through Florida in early September, city and county staff received reports of flooding in a stretch of Palm Avenue near Burns Court, south of Ringling Boulevard.

The local stormwater response team checked nearby inlets and manhole covers for obstructions and found nothing that might be exacerbating the flooding issues. Staff concluded the problem was likely related to the high tides — a major storm was passing by, after all — and noted that the flooding stopped when the tides ebbed.

Staff took note of the issue for future reference, but said it was just one of many city streets prone to flooding in tropical storm or hurricane conditions.

“The area has been added to our list of hot spots to watch,” city Utilities Director Doug Jeffcoat said.

Two months later, some Palm Avenue residents aren’t satisfied. City Commissioner Liz Alpert said people living in the area told her flooding problems arise even during normal rain events. Savoy on Palm resident J.P. Elden encouraged Alpert to push for concrete action.

“(It’s) not a problem now, but (it) will be,” Elden wrote in an October email. “Why not fix before the next rainy season?”

The discord highlights the challenge for Sarasota’s stormwater management officials. The county, which manages the city’s stormwater system, has an established level of service for streets in the city during storm conditions.

Ben Quartermaine, an engineering and operation manager with the county stormwater division, explained that level of service allows for up to 12 inches of water on some residential streets during “100-year” storms — including many streets in the downtown core. Storms like Hermine don’t meet that threshold, but during the most intense periods of rainfall, the conditions are similar, Quartermaine said.

“When we receive 2 or 3 inches over the course of an hour, that’s equivalent to a 100-year storm event,” he said. “So you’d expect to see, in some areas, road flooding.”

“We track rainfall on almost a daily basis.” — Ben Quartermaine

That doesn’t mean staff isn’t taking steps to address the issues. City Manager Tom Barwin pledged to have storm drains in the area cleared out, though he acknowledged that might not solve residents’ problems.

“If not that, it may be a capacity issue and a combo of heavy rain combined with high tide, which slows the flows,” Barwin wrote Nov. 14. “But we will get to the bottom of it.”

The county is in the process of seeking a contractor to rehabilitate or replace significant amounts of stormwater pipes in the downtown area. In the meantime, Quartermaine said city and county staff continue to monitor streets prone to flooding in an attempt to ensure no obvious obstructions are making matters worse — and not just before and during major storms.

“We track rainfall almost on a daily basis during the summer months and have implemented these inspections on a regular basis to ensure the system is functioning well,” he said.