Hurricane Milton’s highest recorded gust in St. Petersburg was 101 mph, enough to shred Tropicana Field’s teflon-coated fabric dome and splay the fragments along an adjacent interstate.
St. Petersburg officials, now completing an estimated $59 million storm repair project, are confident souvenir hunters will not have another opportunity to collect a piece of local baseball history. Contractors installed the 24th and final roof panel Nov. 20 and were still sealing the white and tan material during a Dec. 4 tour.
The sun will naturally bleach the new fabric, now made from polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). While the roof is similar to what Milton blew off in early October 2024, City Architect Raul Quintana noted that 36 years of technological advancements will exponentially increase environmental resiliency.
“It’s not really the category of a hurricane – it’s the wind speeds and the safety factors for an assembly building, which this is,” Quintana explained. “I’m not sure if it’s 155 or 160 mph winds right up top, but it’s significantly more than what it was.”
Crews installed the Trop’s original roof in 1989. Building regulations continue evolving alongside environmental threats.
Quintana said the tension system holding the panels in place is “very strong.” He is “completely confident” the new roof would have withstood Milton, a Category 3 hurricane when it made landfall near Siesta Key.
ALSO READ: Photos: Inside Tropicana Field and the work to repair it by Opening Day
However, St. Petersburg only received Category 2 gusts. Category 5 winds, which cause catastrophic damage, begin at 157 mph.
“What happened in Milton was unique,” Quintana added. “By that time, the panels were already 35 years old.”
The Trop’s old roof was built to withstand sustained winds of 115 mph. Gov. Ron DeSantis selected the stadium to host a 10,000-person base camp for debris cleanup operations and first responders in the days before Milton made landfall.
While it remains unclear if the city would consider using a rebuilt Trop, which sits on relatively high ground in St. Petersburg, as a storm shelter for residents, Mayor Ken Welch recently noted its “bones” are in “very good shape.” He and others believe the stadium could continue hosting Major League Baseball for several years.
“The roof that was replaced has to be designed to today’s codes, so it’s a much stronger material than it was 35 years ago,” Quintana said. “It’s a slightly thicker material. We were fortunate enough that the engineering team that designed the original roof was still around.
“David Campbell has been instrumental in determining how that material will go back up … It’s going to last. We don’t have any issues with that, and we had to do it that way. We really had no choice.”
Quintana said the work was “done correctly,” with “a lot of thought” and effort. Tampa Bay Rays, Major League Baseball and city officials are completing the once-daunting project, now ahead of schedule, collaboratively.
The color difference “has to do with the sequencing of when the panels were installed,” Quintana said. Administrators “did a lot of testing on the colors,” reflectiveness and “sound absorption issues.”
Beth Herendeen, director of city development, agreed with Quintana’s assessment. While “anything is possible,” and she would “hate to jinx it,” officials are confident the roof will “withstand what it needs to withstand.”
“It would take an extraordinary event to have what happened, happen again,” Herendeen added.
Much of the stadium’s infrastructure, including its catwalks, outdoor-rated lighting, video boards and plastic seats, received minimal damage. Herendeen said the Trop’s exterior did not experience surface flooding, despite Milton dumping 18 inches of rain on St. Petersburg.
Standing water did accumulate in the stadium’s bowl once most of the roof was missing. It then seeped into locker rooms and other below-ground areas.
“We had a Tiger Dam that went around the bottom of the entire field level, pumps and a big fire-size hose or two that ran out to the retention pond,” Herendeen said. “We were pumping the water out when we’d have those (subsequent) rainstorms … to get everything dried up so we wouldn’t have damage from significant standing water.”
Quintana said it takes roughly three months for the sun to bleach the Trop’s tan panels. “There’s not going to be any difference between the panel colors when opening day comes around,” he pledged.
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
