Officials on Sanibel say they have been getting lots of comments lately about flooding on the island. People report that they have never seen water like this and wonder why it isn’t being taken care of.
According to Holly Milbrandt, Director of Natural Resources for the City of Sanibel: They’re correct.
“The reality is, between Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Idalia, Hurricane Helene, Tropical storm Debby, and Hurricane Milton, all of those produced storm surges that we haven't seen in recent memory,” Milbrandt said.
While the island’s storm water system is designed to manage rainfall, storm surge is an entirely different situation.
“We’re surrounded by water, so Pine Island Sound is rising, Gulf of Mexico is rising, and water essentially overwashes the entire island,” Milbrandt said.
When a storm is expected, the city opens its weirs, which are essentially small-scale dams that control the level of a body of water. This creates capacity to drain water off the island. But there are no improvements they can make to the system that would take care of the water rising from all sides of the island, which is what happens during a storm surge event.
“What happens in a storm surge event, which really quickly exceeds any capacity of our storm water system, or really any storm water system,” said Milbrandt.
All residents can do is raise their property and remove valuable items from ground-level storage.
To add to the problem, Milbrandt says, Sanibel has had 20 to 30 inches above its average rainfall this year. And with extreme weather events occurring more frequently and with more severity, it looks like flooding may be here to stay.
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