St. Pete City Council to consider purchasing AquaFence to protect water resources facility

St. Pete is eyeing its own AquaFence. Image via Tampa General Hospital/X.

The city of St. Petersburg is planning to purchase a FloodWall prevention barrier system from AquaFence USA, a product that during Hurricane Helene in late September protected Tampa General Hospital from flooding even as properties surrounding it were inundated by storm surge.

St. Pete City Council is scheduled to vote on the $628,000 expenditure during its regular meeting on Thursday.

The FloodWall would provide 518 linear feet of protection from floodwaters to protect the city’s Lift Station #85 near Albert Whitted Airport. “Failure to procure” the barrier could lead “to operations disruptions, costly repairs, and compromised sewage processing capabilities,” according to the city.

The agenda item for the funding request also warns that the “ability to adequately protect this infrastructure could result in critical service interruptions, negatively impacting public health and safety.”

If approved, the barrier would be delivered to the city in 20 weather-resistant storage crates, including professional engineering stamped drawings, details and calculations. The AquaFence team would provide on-site training for lift station maintenance workers “to ensure proper deployment and operation of the system.”

The AquaFence is engineered to withstand up to 15 feet of storm surge, and it’s already been tested locally. Tampa General Hospital, surrounded on three sides by water from Tampa’s Davis Islands, stayed dry during Hurricane Helene, even as its parking garage, not protected by the fence, was inundated by several feet of water.

While storm surge didn’t test the fence’s maximum capacity during that storm — the area experienced nearly 7 feet of storm surge, far less than 15 — it did its job by keeping the area’s only Level 1 trauma center from being flooded. The fence’s success following the storm went viral, causing Tampa General Hospital’s success story to pop up in stories all over the nation.

The hospital enhanced the fence’s capabilities ahead of the storm, in 2023, by installing resin anchors and concrete attachment points, according to the Herald-Tribune. The fence was deployed again, successfully, just a couple weeks after Hurricane Helene, for Hurricane Milton in early October.