Major infrastructure upgrades meant to protect Florida’s Tampa Bay area from flooding are months away from completion, as the vulnerable region braces for what could be the worst hurricane in more than a century, officials said.
Hurricane Milton is expected to strike the Tampa area overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning with life-threatening storm surge of up to 15 feet, said Austen Flannery, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tampa office.
The region, largely spared from Hurricane Ian two years ago and the worst of Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago, has not been directly hit by a major hurricane since 1921.
“There is really no frame of reference for what that looks like here,” Flannery said. “Unlike the last few storms, where we more have been grazed by the storms, this one’s coming across the peninsula.”
Milton is forecast to retain its major hurricane status and expand as it approaches the west coast of Florida, the National Weather Service said.
If it makes landfall near Tampa, it will pummel a particularly vulnerable area that has not finished making infrastructure improvements that would have helped ease the blow from such a storm.
The city is nearing the end of a roughly $39 million project to improve drainage and reduce flooding in the Seminole Heights neighborhood. The three-year project to build a major stormwater conveyance system began in late 2021.
It is scheduled for completion as early as April, according to Joshua Cascio, a spokesperson for the city of Tampa’s infrastructure and mobility department.
“As it exists currently, our system does need upgrades, especially as Tampa continues to grow,” he said. “Importantly, projects like these require years to build and are very expensive. For these reasons we ask the public for patience as we work to bring more of them online.”
Cascio said Tampa is prepared for Milton, though he stressed that residents should follow evacuation orders. Workers have been clearing debris from Helene out of stormwater systems and off the streets, he said. The city has removed nearly 300 tons of debris from roads after sweeping more than 800 miles.
“We are as ready as we can be,” he said.
Cascio said Tampa also has several other multiyear flood-relief projects in the works and is in the process of developing a new watershed management plan that will examine each basin and help determine future infrastructure needs.
Tampa spokesperson Adam Smith said the city has invested $2.9 billion on upgrading water and wastewater pipes since 2019 and began $360 million in stormwater improvements in 2017.
“Tampa is considerably better off in terms of infrastructure from two years ago and vastly better than 10 years ago,” Smith said.
The Tampa Bay area is particularly vulnerable to storm surge due to its low-lying geography, said Dennis Smith, an urban planner and professor at Florida State University’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning.
In fact, the World Bank ranked Tampa as one of the top 10 coastal cities around the globe at highest risk of damaging floods in 2013.
That greatly threatens waterfront roads and development, Smith said, adding that unlike other parts of Florida, like Miami, storm surges from the Tampa Bay area can go much farther inland.
In 1921, an unnamed storm, believed to be a Category 3, led to at least eight confirmed deaths and cost $5 million, the National Weather Service said. It was the most destructive hurricane in the area since 1848.
Since then, the region’s population has grown from roughly 400,000 people to 3.8 million, and the number of buildings has either tripled or quadrupled, according to the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.
Statewide, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared an emergency for more than 50 counties. Florida authorities made a late appeal Tuesday for residents in Milton’s path to evacuate. The National Weather Service said Tuesday was the last full day for Florida residents to do so.
Tropical storm force conditions are expected to begin as early as Wednesday afternoon, Flannery, the meteorologist, said. As of 11 a.m. ET, Milton, bordering on Category 5, was about 520 miles southwest of Tampa with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.
“This is playing out to be one of our worst case scenarios for our area,” said Wren Krahl, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council’s executive director.
“I’ve been in this world for 25 years,” she said, “and I’m still not going to believe what I see in the next few days.”
