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Kimberly Blair: Can we design our communities to be flood-resistant?

Kimberly Blair

April's disastrous flooding event certainly blindsided the area.

Even if 25 inches of rain had been forecast, many residents who flooded likely would not have prepared — sandbagged or moved precious belongings — because they had never been flooded before. Why would they even think for a minute they'd flood this time?

We've learned some hard and expensive lessons.

I've been all over the two-county area since the April 29-30 flood, talking to residents, public officials and engineers.

We are learning some systems failed, like the poorly built retention pond near the University of West Florida.

But overall, what nearly every public official is "officially" saying is: "You can't build a system to handle the amount of rain we got in the 24-hour period."

In reality, we can build for 100- or 500-year storms. The problem is, can you the taxpayer or utility payer ante up for it?

One public official pointed out as a comparison: You can build a hurricane-resistant home. But how many people can afford to do so?

What if this rain event is not a 100- or 200-year storm? Climate change scientists have been warning us about these extreme weather events for years.

I have heard many people bring up the "CC" words in the past two weeks. They're worried if torrential rain becomes the new norm, how we will deal with it.

We'll have to start looking at more expensive stormwater systems to better protect our homes. It's something residents in South Florida are already facing because of rising seas.

Many scientific reports addressing how to deal with increased runoff from intense rain events offer a number of ways to reduce flooding.

Along with installing systems that handle larger volumes of water, the plans also call for increasing green spaces in which water can pool and seep into the ground, re-establishing and protecting wetlands, and planting more trees that suck up large volumes of water.

That's what all of our pine trees and other native trees so many people cut down and replace with palm trees are good at doing. According to the American Forests, a conservation group, for every 5 percent of tree cover added to a community, stormwater runoff is reduced by about two percent.

I remember when Houston first got hit with what it called a 100-year rainstorm. I remember because my mother was stranded on Interstate 45 overnight. Lots of people died when they drove into the floodwaters.

Those 100-year floods began happening frequently because the city had clearcut too many trees and paved over too much land.

Now you can see places where there are so many trees in the urban areas it's hard to see the shopping centers and grocery stories from the main road. It's beautiful and, no doubt, part of the answer to flooding.