‘This is on the city’: St. Pete residents frustrated over historic flooding

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — Unprecedented flooding in St. Petersburg on Wednesday put people out of their homes.

The heavy rain across the city was a challenge, especially for people on the west side of town.

Piles of damaged furniture sit along the curb in front of houses on Fourth Avenue North near 58th Street. Several homes were flooded, with more than two feet of water on the inside.

One man is sleeping in a camper now because his home is unlivable.

“I’ve been here through a lot worse storms than than the one that flooded me out,” Gary Dykens said. “I’ve had a week’s worth of rain and never had flooding here before.”

Across from him is a woman who recorded video of the flooding while she waited for help.

“My baby, she woke up and said, ‘mommy, it’s water in the house’. So I’m like, are you kidding me? Like this the second time that we flooded in a month,” Callie Burney said. “We got to move. Well, we really gonna be homeless.”

Pamela Strong took photos of flooded cars at an intersection. She said she had to park three blocks away and walked through the flood waters to get to her house.

“We’ve never had flooding here before,” Strong said. “We’re not in the flood zone. So that is terrifying. It’s scary, it’s devastating, but what are you going to do?”

That’s what residents are asking city leaders Monday, as they clean up what’s left in their homes.

Two streets to their north begins District 8, where Richie Floyd is the councilmember.

“District eight, is the highest part of Pinellas County. It is up on a hill. If this can happen to us, this can happen to anyone,” Floyd said.

Floyd sent a photo of a car in a canal.

Stephanie Spencer was cleaning out her car Monday. It’s totaled from the flooding.

“It was up over the window right here, and it kind of came up against the house,” Spencer said. “We cleaned it. But if you look, you can see the dirt line.”

The water flooded her garage, up to her ankles. She has sand bags now, but is concerned ahead of whenever the next storm may be.

“It’s got to be a problem with the drainage systems around here. That’s never happened before,” Spencer said.

Floyd said outside of routine service and maintenance, they have not focused on storm water issues in the district before now, because of how high the district sits.

“It was really eye opening to see something 60 feet above sea level get so much water so quickly,” Floyd said. “Our storm water system was built to take seven inches of rain in 24 hours, and we got nearly that much in one hour. And we’re going to have to talk about, you know, what does it look like? Do we need to upgrade our stormwater system? Is this a one off? Will this get more frequent with the way that the climate’s been changing? And there’s a lot of decisions that have to be made going forward along those lines.”

These resident’s want to know when they’ll start hearing some answers.

“I feel like the city is responsible for this and then I feel like, with you being on assistance, like they like, there’s no help,” Burney said.

Strong said a few of her neighbors were forced to move out of their homes due to the flooding, and doesn’t think its fair.

“That is exactly what I would ask (the city) to do, anything. Just do something. Not asking for a lot, just something. Accept responsibility and help these people,” Strong said.

In one home we measured two feet of rain, and three feet up against the shed.

“This is not on us. This is on the city,” Dykens said. “Something wild happened with the sewer system or something or plug-age. Because this is ridiculous.”

Floyd said they’ll be having conversations soon about regulating storm water run off in the city. He says this is only a small part of the problem.

“I’m hoping that we can get the strongest possible regulations on private development so that way we can ensure that our stormwater systems strong and ready for the future,” Floyd said.

Those regulations include if developers pave over spaces, they have to capture water and not just let it run off into the city’s stormwater system. He wants to make sure people create rain gardens and swales, leave green space, planting native plants, and lowering parking lots or capturing water in bolts.

“We need to reprioritize,” Floyd said. “Put, you know, resilience in our infrastructure at the top of the list, and make sure we’re really investing in it. And I think that’s going to take a holistic mindset change that the city of St. Petersburg already has been undergoing, but really needs to commit to.”

This is not a problem limited to one neighborhood. City leaders ask residents to know if they are in a flood zone, prepare, get sand bags or flood barriers, and demand more of elected officials.

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