SHORE ACRES, Fla. — When severe weather brings heavy rain into St. Pete, the people in Shore Acres know to prepare for flooding.
ABC Action News has been there for multiple clean-ups in the neighborhood Danny Gary calls home.
"Unfortunately, my street was underwater. I got a couple inches," he said.
Gary loves his neighborhood and doesn't plan on leaving, but it's a different story when you drive through the neighborhood.
"Signs are all over. Everywhere, everywhere. I feel like if you go on Zillow, and you look at St. Pete, in general, you type in that you want to see, you know, you're looking for houses, and St. Pete is just Shore Acres. There's like 90% of the houses are Shore Acres. And they've been on the market for a while," he added.
Other houses have long-term storage bins in the driveways.
"I got buddies even looking for houses in St. Pete, who are living like California, and they want to move to St. Pete," he said. "They're worried about Shore Acres. And I'm like, 'Dude, listen, you come to Shore Acres, you're gonna love it,' obviously, the money and the effort that St. Pete's trying to put in makes it better. "
Over the next five years, the city is set to invest about $40-$50 million into Shore Acres.
The most recently approved project is $16 million towards a new pump station for Connecticut Avenue, the lowest-lying area in Shore Acres.
"How do you visualize 100,000 gallons per minute? That's a lot of water. But that's the capacity that we're going to need to really put a dent into this problem of the flooding within shore acres," said Claude Tankersley, St. Pete's Public Works Administrator.
But that project won't start for another 24 to 36 months.
In the meantime, other projects are slated to begin and try to provide some relief.
"The council approved $3.75 million for new backflow preventers. We've started on that project, which actually should have an impact on the storm season this summer. We're moving quickly on that," he added.
Other projects will focus on Arizona Avenue and Denver Avenue.
That's promising news to the people who have no intentions of leaving.
"I got like barriers and stuff now. So if it ever does come, you know, a couple of inches, I can stop that with some barriers. I'm super happy that they're doing something for sure. Makes me feel better. You know, obviously, I have my own effort that I was going to do, but the fact that the city's open as well, I think, is just gonna make it even better," said Gary.
