Can North Port roads, drainage networks be hardened to withstand storms?

NORTH PORT – Wes Brooks, the chief resilience officer for the state of Florida, recently toured the city of North Port to study its roads, drainage and utility systems and talk about bracing that infrastructure for future storms.

As part of the Oct. 27 tour, Brooks  and a group that included city and county leaders, as well as representatives of the state departments of emergency management, economic opportunity, transportation and environmental protection, stopped at Price Boulevard, a drainage structure that saw severe erosion after Hurricane Ian and the Country Club Ridge area of North Port.

The main topic of discussion was the importance of improving mobility and hardening our infrastructure for future storms.

Related:Extreme rainfall led to erosion of the banks of a key North Port waterway

Earlier:70-year-old music school student releases music video detailing impacts of Hurricane Ian

North Port Utilities Director Nancy Gallinaro cited one idea: burying utility lines under waterways. The city did just that for the Price Boulevard crossing over the Blue Ridge Waterway, west of Race Street.

“When the roads are flooded and the rivers are flowing and you can’t access a road, it’s pretty impossible for us to get to any lines to fix them, until the access is available for us,” she said.

“When a road washes out and you have shallow lines or a bridge washes out and you have aerial lines, those lines are going to be compromised as much as the roads,” she added.

In the case of the Blue Ridge Waterway crossing, Gallinaro said the city used a boring machine to bury the lines under the waterway.

“The next time we have a storm – and we will have storms – our lines will be protected,” she added. “That’s one of the things we want to look at for the rest of the city.”

The repair of Price Boulevard, which included replacing crossings over four waterways, was finally completed by the city on Nov. 4.

Gallinaro noted that the city’s water system – which can draw from the Myakkahatchee Creek and Cocoplum Waterway as primary sources, along with Sarasota County supplies and the Peace River Water Supply Authority in reserves – came through Hurricane Ian well.

But she noted that only one-third of homes in the city are on city water, with tens of thousands of city residents still on well water.

Residents unsure about their well water immediately after the passing of Hurricane Ian, were eligible for free testing by the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County.

Kent Macci, an environmental manager with that department, said last week that the department had received 151 requests to test water samples from the entire county.

Of those, only 70 requests came for wells in North Port, with many of the other requests coming from South Venice

Of those 70 North Port well tests, 39 tested positive for bacteria. In South Venice 17 of 37 tests were positive for bacteria.

The immediate remedy for that, Macci said, was for homeowners to treat the well and water system with chlorine.

Typically the health department gets between 15 and 20 requests a month to test wells.

“We’re doing a lot of educating and helping people through the process,” Macci said.

Bottled water has been available through the Disaster Recovery Center at the Shannon Staub Public Library for people with impacted wells.

Brooks said it was important for the state to meet with local officials "about how we can best work together to ensure the long-term recovery of thriving and resilient neighborhoods in North Port and throughout Southwest Florida.”

In addition to wind damage, North Port suffered significant flooding prompted by record rainfall in the Myakka River watershed.

Unprecedented water flow rates as the watershed drained – water flowing down the Myakkahatchee Creek as it entered the city approached a speed of 7,000 cubic feet per second – put significant stress on the city’s 81 miles of canals and waterways.

Those canals, built in the 1950s by General Development Corp. to create buildable lots in the city, were designed to handle water flow in a 10-year storm event over a five day period.

Hurricane Ian has been characterized as a 500-year rainfall event.

The most high profile impacts from that water flow have been the damage to Price Boulevard and erosion of the banks of the Cocoplum Waterway in at least two locations – including adjacent to Water Control Structure 106.

As recently as a Monday afternoon workshop on economic recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, North Port Public Works Director Chuck Speake noted that the city is still using drones to overfly the canal system to gauge the impact of the storm and quantity of debris that must still be removed from the system.

Much of the discussion during Brooks’ tour, according to an email from North Port spokesman Jason Bartolone, involved the hardening and improving of the city’s drainage system and improvements to the roadway network.

Earle Kimel primarily covers south Sarasota County for the Herald-Tribune and can be reached at earle.kimel@heraldtribune.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Officials review North Port infrastructure after Hurricane Ian impact