Hurricane Idalia made landfall last August about 200 miles north of Jennifer Connell-Wandstrat’s neighborhood in St. Petersburg, Fla., but her ranch-style home was inundated with nine inches of water that destroyed appliances, doors, walls and dry, its floors and furniture. She still sleeps on a mattress on the living room floor with her youngest daughter.
Such an ordeal might once have seemed impossible to repeat, at least in a resident’s lifetime. But Ms Connell-Wandstrat is under no such illusion.
She lives in Shore Acres, a low-lying enclave on the edge of Tampa Bay where the streets are wide, the houses are comfortable — and floodwaters have become a constant threat.
“It’s a real fear now,” said Ms Connell-Wandstrat, whose home has flooded twice in three years. “When is it next?”
The next surge of extremely damaging storm surge is only a matter of time, she and her neighbors know, especially with forecasters expecting the hurricane season that began Saturday to be extremely busy. Experts predict there will be 17 to 25 named storms, including four to seven that become major hurricanes with winds of at least 111 miles per hour.
Hurricane Idalia, while not as bad as other recent storms, flooded many neighborhoods away from the strong winds at its center. As climate change leads to higher sea levels and more frequent and intense storms, many more neighborhoods in Florida are expected to become vulnerable to the risk of flooding. In Shore Acres, at least 1,200 of about 2,600 homes flooded from Idalia; many were flooded again during a storm in December.
Facing that reality isn’t easy, and people at Shore Acres often field questions from relatives and friends asking why they stay.
Some have chosen to leave; “For sale” boards are dotted on almost every block. Others are raising their houses or leveling them and rebuilding higher; imposing three-story structures now stand next to older one-story houses.
But many residents, like Ms Connell-Wandstrat, cannot afford to raise their homes or move. Even with significant equity in their homes – Ms Connell-Wandstrat, a teacher whose husband died in 2018, lived there for 22 years – they are unlikely to find another place they can afford in Shore Acres or in a similar neighborhood, given how much property values and mortgage rates have risen.
“I’m here for the foreseeable future,” said Ms. Connell-Wandstrat.
The neighborhood is leafy and walkable, close to good schools and close to downtown St. Petersburg and Tampa, which is across the bay. A large recreation center hosts community activities. A local Facebook group is very active; after Hurricane Idalia, neighbors offered to do each other’s laundry and recommended reliable contractors.
Ms. Connell-Wandstrat, 51, bought into Shore Acres because it struck her as a gem, populated by doctors and lawyers but also teachers and nurses. However, the less affluent are more vulnerable: The neighborhood is shaped like a bowl, with the more modest homes stretching down the middle.
When some of those homes were built in the mid-20th century, the city could recommend, not require, a certain height, said Claude Tankersley, St. Petersburg’s public works administrator. Today, with tidal flooding rising rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico, parts of Shore Acres take on water even on sunny days. On a recent afternoon, pools were set up at both ends of Mrs. Connell-Wandstrat’s block.
After Hurricane Idalia, residents pressured the city to do more. St.
However, Mr Tankersley said the projects in development were “a Band-Aid”. Everyone at Shore Acres knows that the best option other than moving out is to build higher, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a program to help, but applying is a lengthy process that requires going through city and state.
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“To talk about such a drastic change as having to raise the house and the cost involved, it’s a scary thing,” he said. “We understand that this will take a long time.”
David and Barbara Noah paid several hundred thousand dollars to upgrade their 2,100-square-foot home in 2019, two decades after Mr. Noah first bought it. Their home had never flooded, but their insurance kept going up and the couple didn’t want to leave. Their house now stands more than 16 meters off the ground.
“We need to stay in our neighborhood that we love and have been in for 20 years, and basically be safe,” Mr. Noah said.
Had the house been kept at its original height of 10 feet, Mr. Noah estimated it would have taken on water during Tropical Storm Eta in 2020 and perhaps four feet during Hurricane Idalia last year. The morning after Idalia, the Noahs tried to help neighbors wading through the deep water and lifting their belongings into trash bags. Ms Noah said the experience made her uneasy.
“There’s that guilt factor,” she said. “Just seeing them go through it, repeatedly, in the time that I’ve lived here — it’s tough.”
Since then, they’ve seen neighbors put their homes up for sale. Mr Noah said many of them were displaced during the pandemic and may not have been prepared for life near the water.
“It’s really sad that people thought they were going to get this dream house in Florida, and then these storms hit,” he said.
Melissa Watson, a 46-year-old surgical nurse, bought her cheerful blue home in 2021. She moved from Ohio to Florida in 2018 after surviving cancer and a divorce. She had lost bids on 17 other homes before her offer was accepted at Shore Acres.
“I didn’t really realize the severity of the flooding that had happened in this area until after I signed on the dotted line,” she said.
A foot and a half of water flooded her home during Hurricane Idalia, forcing Ms. Watson and her teenage son to bounce between friends’ houses, Airbnbs and hotels for eight months.
To fix the water damage, the insurance offered to pay $52,000 to $58,000; contractors told her the work would cost $65,000 to $75,000. She couldn’t afford to raise the house, but raised the air conditioner and electrical outlets with an eye toward the next flood.
“My neighbors are selling. I have no neighbors across the street. A monstrosity is being built right behind me,” she said. “I fear how this neighborhood will end up.”
Kevin Batdorf, president of the Shore Acres Civic Association, has pushed city and state leaders to find more ways to keep residents in their homes. He said people were quoted anywhere from $250,000 to $400,000, depending on square footage, to raise their home and reconfigure its electrical and plumbing systems.
Mr. Batdorf, a real estate broker, said people were still buying in the neighborhood, if only to tear down and rebuild. He compared the situation to when Tropical Storm Josephine flooded Shore Acres in 1996. Mr. Batdorf waded through knee-deep water at the time to make sure a home his clients wanted didn’t flood. The floods did not diminish the buyers.
“I wrote the contract that day, in the water,” he said. “People like living here. Convenience is where it’s at. It’s heaven.”
In many ways, Ms. Connell-Wandstrat, a mother of four, remains smitten by the neighborhood. “It’s getting up in the morning and smelling the air from the bay, getting that beautiful breeze,” she said. “It’s all the beautiful things of Florida.”
But two home floods and 10 to 15 storm evacuations have left him chronically anxious. For her children, Hurricane Idalia felt like a third traumatic event after the pandemic and the death of their father, who Ms Connell-Wandstrat said had become addicted to painkillers after an injury and overdose.
Her 9-year-old lost the furniture in her room twice. Her 16-year-old self has created an evacuation to-do list on her cellphone. Her 19-year-old parted with his father’s old comic books, which were covered in mold. Her 21-year-old daughter could not return due to limited space.
But as much as they would like the security of living on higher ground, the family’s memories are all at Shore Acres.
“Every child I brought in that front door,” Ms Connell-Wandstrat said. “Here they took the first steps. This is where our life happened.”
She’s installed peel-and-stick tile, stored important items in large plastic bins, and made plans to upcycle a treasured piece of furniture—the nightstand that was in her children’s nursery when they were babies—for next time. that a storm is coming.
Kitty Bennett contributed to research.
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