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.”
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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.
