Commissioner Weightman report on flooding and recovery

1:31:56you as long as you want. I'm sorry. I'm to the point. All right, Mr. Wateman. Thank you, Chairman

1:32:04Mariano. Um

1:32:09Well first I'll just start with just saying to Uh Mike, County Administrator, County Attorney's Office, Commissioner, everybody in here. Thank you for all your hard work. There is no Study, no class really that you can take prepare for How to manage Uh One hurricane, let alone two, within a couple week time period. But There's a lot that I think There's a lot of

1:32:40you know, as as much as there's been a lot of all the challenges and turmoil and loss, there's there's an opportunity for this government to learn quite a bit. from living through a hundred year rain event. and how to plan in the future moving forward. And just watching everything that was happening, my prayers in the morning were beginning, you know, Lord willing, and the creek doesn't rise and the creek kept Keeps rising. And So

1:33:10when we look at the the path of the water we pumped Thanks to Jason Mickle and his team out on air and cutoff. We've moved a million and a half gallons of water since Thursday. Just to keep Aaron Cutoff open. And that's a main vein to get from 41 to 52, and in the water flowing through Conerton. And Conerton's one of those projects. I just use this as an example It's it's in its final believe it's its final phase. It's a project that's been approved years and years ago. But

1:33:41I think we need to take a look at these these projects that aren't finished yet to see the path of this water. And determine Uh if it's still appropriate to continue moving forward, what we might need to do, how we understand you know, what needs to happen. I mean For example, if if if Aaron Cutoff were to have a failure like Curley Road and other roads There's you It's the long way around because the Call Your Parkway extension you know, is not

1:34:11necessarily scheduled to be built. To connect. Parkway and forty one to fifty two. So when you look at the flow of water, we need to I I'd really like to understand, you know, while it's still up there, if we get the the the experts and the engineers to take a look at, hey Is it appropriate to continue on this direction here in this particular area and other projects that are going on? So when we look at Quell Hollow, I mean we had rapids. running through Quell Hollow and we know water flows

1:34:41through there pretty heavily. It was pretty wild to see Cypress Creek as heavy as it was and we know the water flows south through Cypress Creek, flooding in Enclave and on down through them all. But there's also a thousand acres, the SOHO project, for example. uh that Swift Mud does have an interest in and then maybe the County's Eland property might be having it. And how's that play into the bigger picture of to alleviate flooding within the area? Is there a potential that hey these are these properties that don't have anything going on on them. Are they

1:35:11the solution to our problem and we can now I think if we get the right people in the room, the experts that we can really see in real life application with how water flows are. Hey if we put something or we don't s put something there What's you know, is it gonna is the water gonna stack up? What's the natural flow? We're not gonna impede the flow of water. Or is it appropriate to build new things or how we finish or close out projects that are currently approved? I know there's a bunch of sticky wickets in those 'cause the the the the legal

1:35:42nuances of approvals and everything that goes in into them, state statutes, but I think it's really important That we use this time. not just in a cleanup effort, but we find a way to go on offense. and to take a look at how this water's holding and puddling. I mean there's houses that are flooded that aren't in a flood zone. And the water's just pulled there and that's it. No fault. to that homeowner. I don't know if there was a fault to blame anywhere, it's just something that happened. But if

1:36:13we identify Mike whatever the the technology you have, that overlay that you're seeing where water is puddling and flooding. How do we use this information? in the future to make the right decisions. And then how do we manage it going forward? So tough situations all the way around. I think obviously I think there needs to be a renewed effort. into uh Commissioner Starkey's volume on our phone to turn it down. But a renewed effort into you

1:36:43know I don't know if we who we partner with and talking with all the C D Ds and HOAs to have an idea of the county should understand as a partner government When's the last time you had your stormwater system scoped and looked at and renewed? Is it is it a problem that is not necessarily the county's lines that are backing up water? Is it in this in the C D Ds? I think communication within our our water infrastructure system, I think there needs to be a new level of of communication and how the C D Ds that we have communicate

1:37:14with the county 'cause when we have these major storm events and all of a sudden water pumps up but There's no record of I'm not wanna name any specific community that hasn't been cleaned the the the infrastructure hasn't been maintenance or cleaned out and

1:37:29in Lake Pageant uh east, the folks all along the creekside. I've talked to folks that live there for forty three years and they've never had water. Now they got six feet of water in their house. And we go and we try to understand the culvert along the sides of the road. Some of them are galvanized, some of them are supposed to be homeowner maintained. The county said what's on county right of way, but homeowners have to do it and it costs the homeowner a pile of money. It's just old stuff. that's been there a long time. And Uh the action

1:37:59came. And there were failures across the board. And so We see it. and we understand it and I think we need to find a way to m to to the older communities and even the newer communities find a way to schedule and understand where these sticking points are. It's a big, big job. It's probably gonna take several years to to understand and connect all the dots, but I think we need to have a renewed effort in doing Um you know. that best management practice across

1:38:30the board. And then also um the East Pasco landscape is lost. A tremendous amount. amount of oaks, generational oak trees that Your grandkids, my kids, you know, my great grandparents saw my grandparents grew up with their gone. And so I've reached out to Ed Blummel at Commissioner Simpson's office to try to find out if there's a way to do that. uh programs out there to help with replanting efforts of oaks and to

1:39:00have people not be afraid because there's folks all around they want to chop down every oak tree in their yard now because of this. And uh I don't necessarily think that's a healthy approach. Um so to restore, you know, trees and hopefully, you know, a couple of generations from now we'd be able to replant some some trees, some good oaks, grant live oaks that to replace the ones that we've we've lost. Um, you know, Pasco County's It's it's landscapes forever change from this storm, uh if you go east and it's

1:39:30it's sad to see but There's opportunity to replant and replant in the right way. So I'd like to find a way to do that. Grant monies or whatever Uh to have people, you know, replant or the county replant. And and it you know, they're expensive, but to find a way to not put that entire cost on the homeowner. So as as we're going through grant applications and trees soak up water. They drink a lot of water too. And I think a lot of people don't realize with their trees is These trees probably saved quite a bit of homes 'cause they took the beating

1:40:00from the wind. and they took the hit for the homeowner if it didn't fall on their house, it could have protected them in ways that we'll never know. So anyway, just a lot of big Big picture thoughts and out there to to look at going forward and I hope The rest of the board members have similar thoughts and kind of uh agree to go through this exercise. Um You know, and just appreciate everybody hanging tough and working hard and Cleaning up the mess and You know, and um thank you to your families too

1:40:30for allowing you all to do your jobs and uh hanging tough with you as they may be cleaning up. your own nests and your own lives while you're out here serving serving the people of Pasco County. So It doesn't go unnoticed by me. and uh appreciate all of you all very, very much. Thank

1:40:49you, Chairman Mariano. Before we go to the next person, yes.

1:40:53Yeah. Notified by the team that uh you didn't take a motion on eighty four, the what the item that was what that was on consent. But then you got we got tied up with the Objector to eighty five. So I don't think you've taken action on eighty four, which was the consent item that nobody objected to.

1:41:19Move to approve item eighty four.

1:41:23Second.

1:41:24I got a motion on second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion pass five zero. Thank you. Inform them we did it. So Oh I've got one other thing uh before I let Mr. Wayman speak. Um Uh we've been through a An event of two hundred years or more? Um unprecedented water that nobody ever expected. And a lot of things don't work the same as they always did because of that unexpected storm events

1:41:54that we've had. Uh I've been here for seventy nine years and I've never seen anything like this. Ever. So A lot of things play in the into this disaster that we've just had in our county. So And with that, I limit everybody to five minutes.