An independent engineer and hydrologist said Sarasota County should make a series of changes in managing development and floodplains after storms caused widespread and costly flooding during the 2024 hurricane season.

Stephen Suau sent a list of 10 recommendations to the county this month, calling for more proactive floodplain protection, more review of proposed developments and regular inspections of flood-prone areas.

“Perhaps the most important recommendation is that they need to build the internal capacity and expertise of the staff,” Suau said.

“I’ve seen over the decades that expertise has thinned out. My sense is that they’re trying to bring it back. But for a long period of time, the county seemed to just rely on consultants,” he said.

Suau was one of the first professionals to lead the stormwater department in Sarasota County. It was created not long after an unnamed storm in 1992 dumped more than 11 inches of rain in Sarasota and Bradenton, flooding thousands of homes.

This year saw another so-called 100-year flood in Debby, which passed Sarasota as a tropical storm and made landfall as a hurricane in the Big Bend region.

Suau said he hopes the flooding Sarasota experienced in Debby will be another impetus for change.

“From 1992 came a lot of progress in managing stormwater with the creation of a funding source and acquiring land like the Celery Fields and putting in place a comprehensive monitoring system,” he said.

Sarasota County put $25 million into its stormwater department last year. Still, Suau’s independent review found some things missing.

“One of the things I learned in meeting with county staff about this process, for example, is that the stormwater department doesn’t have a drone — you know, very basic technology these days — that would allow them to scout for a pretty storm fast and pretty accurate,” Suau said.

In addition, “they don’t currently have a person who is reviewing at planning permission scale that the drainage of the site for a new house will not affect the people next door,” he added.

“This is very micro-scale, but it’s the kind of thing that they have to have. They have the funding sources.”

Last month, Suau spoke at Selby Library about his discovery that a levee breach near Cowpen Slough led to flooding in the Laurel Meadows area, where nearly all 86 homes suffered water damage in Debby.

In some of the recommendations he has made to the county, Suau called for annual inspections of all dams and levees to avoid such disasters in the future.

Sarasota County Public Works Director Spencer Anderson has said the area that leaked wasn’t looked at for a few years before Debby, but offered no further details.

“There was no pre-storm inspection of the soil bar between Cowpen Slough and Phillippi Creek,” and its last inspection prior to Debby, which made landfall in early August, is “unknown at this time,” Sarasota County Public Works said in a statement this week.

Some Laurel Meadows residents have said they are considering legal action after their homes, which were not located in a FEMA flood zone, took in more than a foot of water that lingered for days after Debby passed.

Allison Cavallaro

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Given Sarasota County’s increasing population, and ever-present demands to build more housing, commissioners should probably say “no” more often when developers ask to increase density in flood-prone areas, according to Suau.

“We’ve built in the floodplain before. It’s not really a good idea, in my opinion,” Suau said.

“I think you need to look at it more closely before you increase density in the floodplain. And I’m not saying you should never develop in the floodplain. I’m just saying you have to be really careful and plan it and figure it out, because make sure it’s not going to hurt the new people and the existing residents, make it worse for them.”

Asked for comment on Suau’s recommendations, Public Works said in an email: “We worked with Mr. Suau to provide him with data for his evaluation and continue to review his findings as we complete our own evaluation of the flooding from Hurricane Debby . “

Both Suau’s findings and the county’s findings “will be discussed with the County Commission during their planned workshop on January 21, 2025,” the spokesman added.