We're in the midst of hurricane season, and almost a year out from Hurricane Helene and Milton, two storms that caused millions of dollars in damage to the Tampa Bay area.
This year, the city of Tampa is continuing to develop infrastructure and stormwater system projects.
However, funding towards these same local projects were vetoed by Gov. Ron DeSantis during the state budget sessions for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
Speaking on WAMU's 1A, Mayor Jane Castor explained how Tampa is preparing for this hurricane season.
This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
Well, Tampa faces a mix of flood threats, so there's intense rainfall and storm surge. There's also rising sea levels. How is your city evolving as these risks evolve?
Well, we have been evolving. As you said, I've been mayor since 2019 and one of the main focuses is looking at our aged infrastructure. We passed a $3 billion pipes plan in 2019 when I first became mayor, to replace our aging water and wastewater pipes, which in some cases were 80 to 100 years old. We have our stormwater projects that we are doing throughout the city as well, but those are a different type of an animal. There is technology now where we use pipe bursting to replace water pipes, and so it's not invasive. They just burst the old pipe and pulls a new one behind it, and the new line our wastewater pipes with fiberglass lining. So again, not intrusive.
Stormwater systems, when you're putting in a 12 foot by 12 foot box culvert, there's no simple way to do that. It's very invasive in neighborhoods, and it is disruptive for, in some instances, a matter of years. So we have put in those large projects throughout our city in the last six years. We finished one that is a 48-acre stormwater location pond, but it's also a recreation center, and so we've been able to focus on that. But it's, you know, not enough. These stormwater systems can only handle a certain amount of water, and we learned that lesson in Helene and Milton when we got hit with that one-two punch.
Well, I want to get to this question we got from one of you. Well, it's more of a statement. Flood barriers along rivers are expensive and hard to do. So no state makes it a priority, same as hurricane preparation in Florida or earthquake prep in California. There's not much done ahead of time. Instead, we just handle it when it happens. In your time as mayor, how challenging, or perhaps it's been an easy proposition to say to people, "listen, this is a lot of investment that's really about long-term protection, so you may not see or feel the effects of this investment until the big storm happens, or the one-two punch of Helene and Milton happen."
How much has this been about educating your constituents and saying these tax dollars are worth spending?
Yes, and the education is a large part of it to ensure that those individuals that are providing those tax dollars understand that they are getting the needed services from that. And that's one of the reasons that people ignore infrastructure, because you only appreciate it when it's needed or in those times when it's being overwhelmed. And so we didn't have any issue passing our $3 billion pipes plan. My position was, a successful city is built on a strong foundation, and we've ignored that- most cities have - for decades at a time.
Stormwater systems are a much more difficult sell. We have one right now that is going through one of the most popular areas in our city. It's going to be a four year long stormwater plan, and it's going to be intrusive, and we've had a lot of pushback, and so literally held that plan until hurricane season, and then we got hit with Helene and Milton in short order. Four to seven foot storm surge from Helene. 13 days later, we got the most rain that we've received in decades, and flooded neighborhoods. And so everyone was clamoring for that stormwater project at that time.
How do your prioritize which neighborhoods see upgrades first? What data are you relying on?
We're using the data from our engineers, and we use outside consultants too, to ensure that we are putting these projects in the area that they will serve the most residents, and they will be the most beneficial in those neighborhoods. And they literally are the low lying areas that are throughout our city. We've put them geographically all over the City of Tampa.
I'm curious about the resilience piece of your planning, because it's one thing to put in systems that help mitigate the impact of storms, but when you're talking about where you put housing, if you rebuild in areas that have been destroyed. Walk us through the conversations that are happening in Tampa right now.
So Tampa is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, and it is a wonderful time. People have discovered that we literally live in paradise down here in Tampa, and so we're having a huge influx, which means a great deal of development at all levels, and that is something that we have to deal with through the infrastructure, including handling that stormwater. And the less ground cover you have, the less permeable surfaces that you have to accept that water, and so those are the things that we have to deal with before any structure is permitted. We have to address a number of issues, but also specifically the stormwater issues.
I'll give you something, just-a-not-for-nothing in our sustainability effort, where we were set back, our state legislature just passed a bill that said anyone can put down ground cover surface, and it doesn't necessarily have to be permeable. In the City of Tampa, if you wanted to put down synthetic grass, it had to be permeable. Well, now we have to deal with that issue too. So now we've taken away that much more of our ground space that can handle our stormwater.
So you're a city trying to adapt your community to increased flooding. But it sounds like in some ways, your priorities may be at odds with what's happening in the state legislature. How are you navigating that as a mayor?
Right. And that happens quite often. You know, we work with whatever we have to. You put an obstacle in our way, we're going to find a way to move around that. And when I was elected mayor, I hired the first resiliency and sustainability director. And I told him at the time, "look at your team as 5,000 individuals, because every decision that we make is seen through the lens of sustainability and resiliency. It has to be factored in every decision that we make as a city."
At the same time, your city, or state even, can't afford to carry the the price of major infrastructure projects all on its own. There's often been federal funding for that. And earlier this year, the Trump administration shut down FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program, or BRIC, and it helped fund local infrastructure projects. And Florida lost hundreds of millions of dollars for flood and hurricane relief. So how does that affect your plans?
We're very thankful for the funding that we receive from the federal government and the state government in a myriad of streams to address the issues that we need to address and really can't do on our own. I happen to be selected to be on that FEMA review panel, and that is one of the discussions that we have had. These BRIC and so many other programs, how beneficial that is, if we can put that funding up front to allow communities to be more resilient and to sustain themselves through these increasing storms, you know, events from Mother Nature, whether it's fires, floods, earthquakes.
That payment up front is going to be so much smaller than having to go through these events, not to mention the trauma, but the actual financial cost of that damage. And so that is one of the focuses of this FEMA review team, is to ensure that we are sharing how impactful that upfront preventive funding is to our communities and to the nation.
How much of your resilience budget comes from federal dollars as compared to local dollars?
Well, a great deal of it with, you know, a lot of the previous administration funding, we put all of that funding that we received in a number of different areas to good use, to strengthen our community in so many ways, in our resilience, through transportation, through housing, those types of things that, again, if you can spend this money wisely now, it's going to save so much in the future.
So if we're talking about a budget gap through the loss of those federal dollars, are you thinking through a 20% gap? A 50% gap? More? Less?
Well, we're waiting to see what that is going to be, but we do have a number, especially since we suffered through Helene and Milton, we've had a great deal of damage to our sea walls. Just to give one example, throughout the city, we have 126 miles of shoreline in the City of Tampa. And so, you know, we have to have those strong barriers to ensure that private property and public property is protected. And just in that area, you can talk about well over $100 million in that particular area. And so we're trying to ensure that the needs are understood at the federal level and at the state level as well.
We are currently in hurricane season. Do you feel like your appeals are being met with positive reception at this point, because if Tampa is hit by another storm, or like you had previously a one two punch of hurricanes, do you feel like you have the resources you need to help your community recover?
Yes, we do, and we have been prepared. That's one area that I believe that Florida really shines in, and that is our preparation for these large events. In most cases, it's hurricanes. But we just finished our, or had, our vulnerability assessment updated, and one would think that hurricanes would be at the top of the list. It's not, it's extreme rain events, and that's what we're looking at as well to ensure that we have that infrastructure.
But we are prepared, as best as any community can be prepared. But stormwater systems have a maximum capacity, and when you get these severe rain storms, the low lying areas are going to flood, and there's there's no system that will prevent that.
Well, you mentioned the speed at which Tampa is growing, and in May, residents in your city voiced concerns at public hearings about proposed zoning changes. These could allow denser housing in areas already prone to flooding, and they argued that overdevelopment and increased runoff could exacerbate flood risk. Now, the City Council is voting on next steps soon. But how do you respond to those concerns that Tampa development could prioritize growth over safety?
And that's something that I have been keenly focused on since the beginning of my administration, and ensuring that these larger projects that do take extended amounts of time and funding to get through, that we are moving those as quickly as we can, and looking at all of the infrastructure in our community to understand that as we grow, the density is going to increase. That's a fact.
Having that realization coming into this position, I actually served with the Tampa Police Department for 31 years, and I was the chief of police for six years. So I grew up in city administration, and I knew that we have got to have that strong foundation, and have have placed a priority on that, and we have rewritten our zoning and a number of other ways through resiliency, sustainability, ensuring that as we grow, that we do it very thoughtfully and very inclusively as well.
I just want to be clear, your argument for allowing increased housing density in flood-prone neighborhoods, you're trying to answer that concern by building stronger infrastructure. Is that correct?
The low-lying areas, we are increasing density in those particular areas. But we are increasing density throughout the city in other neighborhoods. The less permeable land that you have, the more you're going to have to deal with those stormwater issues and the runoff. And so placing the infrastructure - necessary infrastructure - to handle that additional water before the density comes into those neighborhoods, is what we're focused on.
Listen to the full interview on WAMU's 1A website.
