Hurricane Debby
Tampa Bay residents are mopping up after Hurricane Debby. The storm dumped up to 12 inches of rain in some places. It made landfall near Steinhatchee in Florida’s Big Bend Monday morning, and on the way, it dumped a lot of rain on the Gulf Coast.
Roads were flooded, submerging cars and stranding drivers. Divers from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office recovered the body of a truck driver whose semi-trailer went off I-75 and into a canal.
And the cities of Sarasota, North Port and Fort Myers Beach each declared local states of emergency.
The Sarasota Police Department went out on boats, including in airboats, to remove people from their homes. More than 500 people were rescued.
WUSF’s Kerry Sheridan says right now, it’s hard to put a number on the damage, in terms of money, or the amount of people affected.
“We saw aerial images being posted online yesterday of just huge sections of central Sarasota, all underwater,” Sheridan said. “The inland flooding got remarkably worse beginning Monday morning. We're talking neighborhoods flooding that were several miles away from the coast yesterday.”
Sheridan herself experienced flooding in her neighborhood. The water level had reached the top of her neighbor’s car tires.
“There's this dark, swampy water everywhere, and many residents had their homes flooded inside. So, there's going to be a lot of damage to repair,” she said. “But this morning, I woke up to a duck swimming outside in this circular pond that used to be the cul-de-sac.”
Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun made a plea to people not to call 911 unless it was a true emergency. No sandbags were given out ahead of time and no emergency shelters in Sarasota were open ahead of the storm. However, one shelter opened Monday afternoon to accommodate residents who had to evacuate their homes.
“We saw images posted online over the weekend and yesterday of you know, roads just crumbling, being washed away by the high surf and just the amount of water,” Sheridan said.
The latest from the National Weather Service shows that a number of local rivers are still above the major flood stage as of Tuesday morning. This includes the Manatee River, the Anclote River, parts of the Hillsborough River and the Alafia River.
A week ago, Hurricane Debby was a tropical wave — a disorganized patch of thunderstorms — more than two and a half thousand miles from Florida.
Meteorologist Megan Borowski said numerous ingredients upgraded Hurricane Debby like warm water temperatures of 85 to 90 degrees in the Gulf of Mexico, which provides fuel for a developing system.
“We had very limited (wind) shear in the atmosphere as well. That allows the thunderstorms to have a nice, organized structure and continue to develop,” she said. “So that certainly helped Debby to organize. Once the disturbance got over the Gulf of Mexico, it was able to develop a center of low pressure, quickly turn into a tropical storm, and then become a hurricane.”
Borowski says if you’re new to Florida, take note on what happened in your area to know how to prepare for next time.
Rays stadium deal
Even if you’re aren’t a baseball fan, you’ve probably been tuned into the Tampa Bay Rays’ quest for a new stadium. The Rays are now within striking distance of a brand-new ballpark. The new stadium will be built on what is now the Tropicana Field parking lot in St. Petersburg.
The $1.3 billion plan to build a new stadium and transform a huge part of downtown St. Petersburg is a big deal. And it's closer to breaking ground after Pinellas County commissioners voted five to two to back the project with millions of dollars in tax money.
Rays President Matt Silverman talked about the county commission vote during the play-by-play last Tuesday night as the Rays took on the Miami Marlins.
“What's great is we're also building this city, a kind of miniature city around the ballpark that's going to take 20 years to build out, but the first phase should open with the ballpark, and we're going to create a destination,” he said. “We're going to create a neighborhood; we're going to create jobs. It's a real jolt to the local economy, and that's one of the great things that we can provide as a baseball team is, is that injection.”
There's more to this than just a baseball stadium. Pinellas County Commissioner Renee Flowers said the 86-acre development will help right a wrong that was done to the city's Black community decades ago when the historic Gas Plant neighborhood was torn down to make way for Tropicana Field.
“For this construction development property, we're talking about over 30 years where this could make a true difference in the meaningful lives of people that reside in South St. Petersburg,” she said.
Some residents at the Pinellas County meeting spoke out in favor of the stadium, but others urged the county commission to vote no and send it back to the city to renegotiate.
So, what are the Rays getting out of the deal?
Tampa Bay Times reporter, Colleen Wright, has been reporting on this deal since the beginning.
“The Rays are covering $700 million of that, plus all cost overruns. They're also paying for the insurance, which you can imagine, is probably a lot for a sports stadium in Florida, as well as any renovations they want to make in the future,” Wright said. “What do they get out of it? They keep all broadcasting rights, all revenues, all ticket sales, concessions, the city and the county get no cut of that. It all stays with the Rays.”
After much deliberation, the St. Petersburg City Council finally green lighted the deal. They’re pitching in $287.5 million, plus about $142 million in infrastructure — new roads, sewers and the demolition of Tropicana Field. They’re also selling that land to the Rays to use for the new stadium.
For more on the deal, listen to the full conversation with Colleen Wright on the audio player above.
