Hillsborough County is holding the first of eight public meetings Tuesday night to hear how residents handled flooding during last year's hurricanes.
Officials are looking at how overwhelmed stormwater systems can be improved so flooding won't be so bad during the next storm season.
The meetings are being held to make sure the flooding —particularly from inundated stormwater systems — doesn't get as bad next hurricane season.
Engineering consultant Mike Phelps of the engineering consulting firm Black and Veach said that the initial assessment will look at what happened. He spoke Monday night at a meeting of the Forest Hills Neighborhood Association.
"It's somewhat of an investigation on what occurred following Hurricane Milton, and what the county could have expected for their system to perform," he said, "and what improvements that we could identify to limit or reduce those impacts for future storms."
Phelps said his group will look at how the storms affected roads, private property and businesses.
"So the initial assessment, we've had probably eight on our staff that's been teamed on it. We've split in two separate teams, so we have a data tech team of engineers that have been looking at all the vast amounts of data that we receive," he said. "Our initial investigation, which would be the higher altitude, high level county wide, will be wrapping up in June, and we'll make recommendations back to the Commission at a (Board of County Commissioners) workshop or at their meeting."
Below is a list of the public meetings:
- 6:30 p.m. April 15 -- Pierce Middle School, 5511 N. Hesperides St., Tampa
- 6:30 p.m. April 22 -- Riverview Public Library, 9951 Balm Riverview Rd., Riverview
- 6 p.m. April 23 -- Carrollwood Cultural Center, 4537 Lowell Rd., Tampa
- 5:30 p.m. April 29 -- Plant City High School cafeteria, 1 Raider Pl., Plant City, FL 33563
- 6:30 p.m. May 7 -- Jan Kaminis Platt Regional Library, 3910 S. Manhattan Ave., Tampa
- 6 p.m. May 12 -- University Area Community Development Corporation, Inc., 14013 N. 22nd St., Tampa
- 5:30 p.m. May 15 -- Jimmie B. Keel Regional Public Library, 2902 W. Bearss Ave., Tampa
- 6 p.m. May 19 -- Lennard High School, 2342 E. Shell Point Rd., Ruskin
