Sarasota officials OK $20M for flood and storm resilience projects

By Andrew Warfield
| 3:15 p.m. September 1, 2026
| 2 Free Articles Remaining!

St. Armands Circle was several feet underwater following hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Manatee-Sarasota

More than $20 million has been appropriated for two key storm resilience projects in Sarasota County. At its Aug. 26 meeting, Sarasota County commissioners approved, without discussion, $13.5 million for flood prevention work on St. Armands Key and $6.4 million to expand stormwater holding capacity at Celery Fields.

During the 2024 hurricane season, Tropical Storm Debby hovered just off the coast, dumping more than 20 inches of rain, with gauges in the northeastern corner of the county recording some of the highest rainfall readings. The volume eventually overwhelmed the holding capacity at Celery Fields, flooding not only immediately surrounding neighborhoods but overflowing the banks of Phillippi Creek several miles away and going into the streets of Pinecraft and nearby homes and roadways.

The project will add 60 acre-feet of storage capacity to the Celery Fields Central Cell, a storage capacity expansion of more than 19.5 million gallons.

Meanwhile, the $14 million St. Armands mitigation projects, which include a nearly $500,000 contribution from the City of Sarasota, are intended to retrofit stormwater conveyance and storage to restore the designed level of service while maintaining critical evacuation access for St. Armands, Longboat and Lido keys. Potential improvements include pump station upgrades with backup power, tide check valves and outfall hardening, underground storage vaults, permeable pavement, bioswales and removable flood barriers.

Flooding in the area of Celery Fields caused by Tropical Storm Debby in 2024.

Funding will be provided through the Sarasota County Resilient SRQ fund and Surtax 4 revenue, in addition to the city's contribution of $479,000.

On Jan. 16, 2025, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development published a Federal Register Notice that included a direct allocation of $210 million of Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funds to Sarasota County to support recovery and mitigation efforts following 2024's Debby, Helene and Milton. The county dubbed the funding mechanism Resilient SRQ.

The grant agreement with the federal government was signed June 30, 2025, which started a six-year deadline for grant expenditure.

This article originally appeared on sister site YourObserver.com.

author

Andrew Warfield

Andrew Warfield is the Sarasota Observer city reporter. He is a four-decade veteran of print media. A Florida native, he has spent most of his career in the Carolinas as a writer and editor, nearly a decade as co-founder and editor of a community newspaper in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.