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Drainage problems far from solved
By ANNE LINDBERG © St. Petersburg Times, published September 27, 1998
So officials have spent years and millions of dollars trying to improve the city's drainage so a hit from a massive storm would not be so devastating. Some improvements have been completed and were expected to help keep the flooding at a minimum.
Still others are on the drawing board. "We do expect a lot of flooding throughout the city," City Manager Jerry Mudd said Thursday. To help alleviate some of the flooding, road crews spent Thursday checking and clearing all drainage systems, canals and ditches. Drainage construction was halted and temporary dams were torn down so water flow would not be blocked. That drill also was being followed at the Pinellas Park Water Management District, which is responsible for some of the drainage canals in and near the city. "Right now, all my channels are open, clear," said Jerry Kolar, a district field supervisor. Some areas, Kolar said, will hold water, but that will disappear fairly quickly when the rain stops. "There should be nothing dammed up, per se," he said. Kolar was optimistic about the system's ability to handle most of the flooding, but he had gloomy predictions for the infamous Park Boulevard and 49th Street N intersection. "It will be terrible," he said. He quickly pointed out that the drainage at that intersection is under city control, not that of the water management district. Earlier this month, the city got a $3-million estimate to fix the flooding at that intersection.
While the Park-49th intersection and surrounding areas are likely to be under water, Kolar said most of the rest of Park -- from the railroad tracks west and from the mini-storage east -- should be passable.
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INELLAS PARK -- Even before Georges was spawned, Pinellas Park knew it would have one major problem if any hurricane threatened the area. That problem is flooding.
