ST. PETERSBURG — After days of news conferences warning about Hurricane Helene’s expected historic 5- to 8-feet storm surge, and hours after the window to evacuate had passed, Mayor Ken Welch announced at 5:30 p.m. Thursday that the city may have to take the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility offline.
At 10:46 p.m., the announcement was made to cut power to the sewer treatment facility to protect the plant from unprecedented storm surge.
Residents who live north of 30th Avenue North and east of Interstate 275 will not be able to take showers, do laundry or flush toilets for at least 48 hours. Tap water will not be affected. Residents will still be able to get and drink tap water, but that water won’t drain in a sink or tub.
The city recommends filling up water bottles and brushing teeth outside or over a container. Anything that goes down the drain, the city warned in a news release, “will back up your sewer system.”
The northeast facility, which serves 25% of St. Petersburg’s residents, cannot handle storm surge above 7 feet on the site.
The issue, according to Public Works Administrator Claude Tankersley, is corrosion from the salt water brought on by storm surge. The Northeast facility is the lowest-lying reclamation facility out of all three in the city. The other two facilities, southwest and northwest, are not affected.
The city asked residents on Tuesday to do laundry and dishes that day so water use would be limited when impacts from the storm began on Thursday. Limiting water usage, Tankersley said, “would not help at this point.”
Asked by a Tampa Bay Times reporter at the 11:30 a.m. news conference Thursday how the city’s water systems were faring, Tankersley said they were “operating fine.”
When a Times reporter at the 5:30 p.m. conference asked what happened since the morning news conference, Welch said, “My understanding is this potential has always been there since the plant was built.”
Tankersley said staff won’t be able to bring the plant back online until it’s safe to go back on-site after the storm, make sure electrical equipment isn’t damaged by salt water and turn it on “piece by piece.” Any damaged equipment will have to be replaced.
“We are lucky that we’re not getting a storm surge greater than that,” he said.
Tankersley said the city is in the process of making $50 million in upgrades to the plant he “believes” would’ve protected the plant from 7 feet of storm surge. He said much of the facility’s electrical system was built back in the 1950s and upgraded in the 1970s.
“That upgrade would have given us more leeway in a situation like this,” he said. “It was meant to help protect this plant for greater storm surge because of sea level rise.”
Tankersley said that an employee on staff recalls the facility has shut down once before in 1985 for Hurricane Elena.
“If this happens it will be an unpopular decision,” Placido Bayou resident James Gillespie, 88, wrote to the Times before the site was shut down. “It will show poor planning after years of hurricanes. Mostly it will raise the issue of local government’s competency and forward looking planning.”
©2024 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.