St. Petersburg installs flood panels at NE sewer plant

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The city of St. Petersburg has begun installing flood panels on buildings at the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility, which will help keep the sewer plant operating during hurricanes, according to Public Works Administrator Claude Tankersley.

“This is a very big upgrade,” he said. “We are at the point now that if we were to receive a Helene storm, we would not have to shut down this plant.”

The NE plant was taken offline last year for the first time during Hurricane Helene and then again with Milton. Since that time, St. Pete has been working to harden the plant by elevating some equipment and installing flood panels on low-lying buildings.

“So these panels here will serve basically the same function as an Aquafence,” said Tankersley. “So instead of building a wall of an Aquafence around this facility, we’re providing that same protection by attaching it directly to the building.”

Last week, Public Works began installing flood panels on the first building, which is the filter station. The panels protect critical equipment used in the final stages of wastewater cleaning, and much of it is located in a big underground bay, according to Tankersley.

“After Helene, this entire bay was filled with water, standing water. We had to pump it out,” he said. “Electrical equipment over there was exposed to that saltwater and was damaged. So we had to repair all of that.”

It takes three flood panels to cover one opening on the filter station. Tankersley said the city purchased 100 flood panels for the NE plant, which cost a little more than $1 million. That’s enough panels to protect 11 buildings. Tankersley said the panels are cost-effective because the price to raise one building would be tens of millions of dollars.

“At some point in the future, when this (filter station) building becomes obsolete and the equipment in the building becomes obsolete, we may take advantage of raising it,” he said. “But to do so now would not make economic sense, and so these panels are significantly less expensive.”

Tankersley said they also purchased the same amount of flood panels to protect the city’s Southwest Water Reclamation Facility from storm surge.