SARASOTA — Sarasota County officials revealed the results of a study showing which areas are vulnerable to flooding in the next 50 years.
By 2070, many neighborhoods could be underwater if improvements are not made, concludes the study presented by the UF/IFAS Extension of Sarasota County.
More than 30 people attended both in-person at the Extension Office at Twin Lakes Park in Sarasota, and online this week to learn how their communities could be affected by future flooding.
Much of the resident feedback criticized the county, asking leaders to be more proactive in their approach to prevent flooding.
The 2024 study aimed at identifying, evaluating, predicting and mitigating the risk of flooding to a variety of assets in the county.
Sara Kane, the extension office's Sustainability and Resilience manager, said the study planned for the years 2040 and 2070.
She said the office has been active in resiliency planning since 2021.
"This is really trying to get us to think about projects that we can implement for our assets to make our community less vulnerable to these risks," Kane said. "It's great that we are doing the study, but we also need to talk about how we're going to adapt, and how we're going to mitigate the risk of flood."
Th study was done by Taylor Engineering, which works with several cities and counties around Florida to map out flooding concerns.
Coastal Engineer Ashley Lein looks at the types of flooding that can affect an area, as well as the critical assets within that community.
"Once we have all of that combined, all of that in a database, we look at focus areas and hotspots that have a high density of affordable assets, high density of flooding, as well as community input and regional input," Lein said. "Once you have those focus areas, we've looked at adaptation strategies."
There are four main groups of critical assets, including critical community and emergency facilities; critical infrastructure; natural cultural historical resources; and transportation and evacuation routes.
For flood scenarios, the county faces three main types:
• Tidal flooding, caused when high tides inundate low-lying areas.
• Storm surge, caused by hurricanes or tropical storms.
• Rainfall-induced flooding.
"We're also going to look at not just today, what that flooding looks like right now, but sea-level rise and what that looks like in 2040 and 2070, so that we can effectively plan," Lein said.
Most community members who attended were concerned about how utilities such as water and electrical power would fare after a flood event, as well as emergency response.
"Sarasota County really is striving to be a resilient community," she said. "It means we adapt to these changing conditions — not just looking at today's issues, but tomorrow's issues."
Adapting and mitigating means being considerate of where the county chooses to develop critical infrastructure, such as hospitals, while also adjusting to ongoing climate conditions.
Lein looked at a 100-year storm surge as well as a 100-year rainfall event to understand how both coastal and inland communities are impacted in the county. Assets are ranked low, medium or high, based on the depth of flooding.
Lein said the study came up with six focus areas.
South Myakka River Area Manasota KeyNokomis and Nokomis BeachCasey KeyPhilippi CreekSiesta Key
Infrastructure and natural resources in these areas can be greatly affected by storm surge, rainfall events and predicted sea-level rise.
"The six focus areas have a high density of these critical assets, as well as input from all the other components that we looked at," she said.
Phase one is assessment, revealing where the flooding and critical assets are located, while phase two is developing project prioritization.
"We can align all these efforts going on to make a really comprehensive and thoughtful plan to mitigate these floods and make us safer communities," Lein said.
Adaptation strategies include avoidance, accommodation, protection, retreat and procedure.
Most community members wanted to see more nature-based solutions followed by updated plans and policies.
Kane said the next step is implementation.
"We're going to continue to apply for grant funding for not only the Resilient Florida Improvement implementation projects, but other sources of funding as well," Kane said. "One of my goals is to look at all these projects a little more holistically."
Sarasota County Resident Charlie Weber said that he wants to see more community education and green infrastructure promotion by the county.
"Promoting green infrastructure over grey infrastructure, and development of the workforce that's needed to both design and retain that," Weber said. "I'd love to see planning efforts that support densification of existing areas that are finding the balance between these floods scenarios rather than the expansion of development into green-filled areas that will be lower density and worsen the scenarios."
Weber said that lower-density systems are more expensive to maintain.
"I'd like to see more life-cycle planning of those developments before they're permitted, to show how the county is going to be responsible for them when they do fail," he said.
Kristin Hofschmidt agreed with Weber, adding she would like to see more cohesiveness in agency information to the public
"I see a disconnect in information with how to manage stormwater ponds from IFAS, and about having a vegetative barrier, but then on the waterways that the county manages and contracts out, it's not managed the same," Hofschmidt said.
She emphasized a need for greener infrastructure and revisiting how the county manages wastewater.
"I think there's a lot more the county can be doing, and trying to generate the political will to make that happen," she said.
A story map is expected to come out in September that will provide mapping of the county's critical infrastructure and flooding events for community members.
The extension's final assessment and adaptation plan will also be completed by the end of September.
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