St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch spoke Friday in front of Tropicana Field, whose roof was shredded by Hurricane Milton.
As he spoke, workers were busy replacing strips of the dome's roof. He said they expect the stadium to be ready for the 2026 season.
That was one of the more visible impacts from the storms, and Welch said the city is taking steps to minimize any future damage.
"This time last year, we were concerned about our city facilities' ability to handle the record expected storm surge and how seriously our facilities be damaged or even made inoperable," Welch said. "We do not want to be in that position again."
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So they established the St. Petersburg Agile Resilience Program to work on resiliency projects. That included new water barriers, water pumps, and elevating some critical sewage and electrical system components.
Welch said so far, the city has received $40 million in reimbursements from FEMA for hurricane damage — not including Tropicana Field, which is still being worked on.
They've also gotten about $14 million in insurance payments, bringing the total reimbursements to $54 million.
Welch said the city has issued more than 14,500 post-disaster emergency permits, with a value of around $300 million.
He also said they started the Sunrise St. Pete program, which received $159 million from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is one of only two cities in the state to get direct funding from the federal government. The program supports housing, infrastructure and community recovery.
Also, Deputy Fire Chief Brett Ciskoski said the city has bought three new high-water rescue vehicles, at a cost of about $300,000.
"So we did have areas of the city that were inaccessible to our normal fire vehicles, normal fire engines," Ciskoski said. "So adding these to our fleet is going to make us be able to respond to those areas that are flooded out."
Cisoski said fire officials had their hands full during the hurricanes. That included between 75 to 100 rescues from Milton. During a three-hour period during Helene, there were 430 rescues.
