County staff reports on actions taken to deal with problems
At 7:50 p.m. on Oct. 6, Rachel Burns, executive director of the St. Armands Circle Association, sent an email to Sarasota City Manager Karie Friling, Assistant City Manager Jennifer Jorgensen, Public Works Director Nikesh Patel, Sarasota County Stormwater Director Ben Quartermaine and the city commissioners.
“This evening, St. Armands Circle is again flooding,” she wrote; “not from a hurricane or a moon event, or a high tide” — which would come until 11:42 p.m., with a height of 1.79 feet, she noted. Instead, Burns pointed out, “It is due to rainfall.”
She added, “The water is entering businesses in multiple areas of the Circle as of the time of this email.
“This water has flooded the sewer drains and mixed with the grease traps, to create a foul smelling, disgusting mess that is damaging property …”
The evening of Oct. 5, Chief Meteorologist Bob Harrigan of ABC7 in Sarasota warned of the potential for localized flooding the next two days, “as deep tropical moisture and a sagging front bring rounds of heavy rain … to the Suncoast.”
The Sarasota County Water Atlas data showed that a rain gauge in the area of St. Armands recorded more than 3 inches of rain over the 24-hour period from approximately 9 a.m. on Oct. 6 until 9:04 a.m. on Oct. 7. Slightly more than another half-inch of rain fell over the subsequent 24-hour period, from the morning of Oct. 7 to the morning of Oct. 8, the Water Atlas noted.
In her Oct. 6 email, Burns also explained that she no longer had “a contact for emergencies like these,” because of the departure of Jason Brown, who had served as the field operations manager for the county’s Stormwater Department. “I reached out to the after-hours stormwater support, and found it to be a fully automated AI line,” she continued. “This is unacceptable for an emergency line.
“This is a pump issue,” Burns wrote, “and it MUST be addressed. There have been no updates regarding the SRQ resiliency project. (She was referring to the County Commission’s award of federal grant funds late last year to a stormwater initiative planned on St. Armands.)
“Our main priority was addressing issues NOW,” Burns stressed. “Merchants, landowners, and residents [cannot] afford more repairs. Not addressing the issue with stormwater will be the quickest way to ensure the Circle closes, and the tax revenue to the City and County goes away.”
A pump failure
At 7:57 p.m. on Oct. 5, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis responded to Burns. After thanking her for the information, he wrote, “The senior manager of stormwater, Kari Holmes, has crews routing to that area.”
Then, at 8:16 p.m., Lewis sent a note to the county commissioners, telling them, “We had significant and heavy rain in the [St. Armand’s] area.”
He added that Holmes had sent crews to check on the situation. She had provided him a report, which he was passing along to them.
Holmes explained, “All Stormwater Pump stations are currently operating as intended. We had a pump 1 failure [at one station] at 5:42pm and it was reset at 6:48pm.” She noted, “We have had issues with this specific pump at this station. I will have the team look into it and possibly get the contractor out there if needed. Tide is heading out, will be high again around 2am and we’ll continue to monitor anticipated rainfall.”
Then Lewis reported that Rich Collins, director of the county’s Emergency Services Department, had verified that [the 911 Call Center] has [been] monitoring reports of street flooding.”
Advisories had been issued for the following areas, Lewis wrote:
- The intersection of Siesta Drive and Osprey Avenue in the city of Sarasota.
- The section of South Tamiami Trail between Hillview Street and Webber Street in Sarasota.
- The intersection of Bahia Vista Street and Euclid Avenue in Sarasota.
- The intersection of South Tamiami Trail and Datura Street in Sarasota.
“The team will continue to monitor [the situation],” he concluded that email.
At 8:26 p.m. on Oct. 6, Lewis sent another email to Burns of the St. Armands Circle Association.
“You should also be able to call 311 after hours and the call will get to the right after hours team members,” he wrote, referring to the number for the county Contact Center. That staff has the after-hours contact information, Lewis noted.
“Additionally,” he explained, “after the last time we had [a] pump problem the stormwater director enacted a policy to have a team member go out when we are aware of any calls or significant rains just to verify.”
The details, from the Stormwater staff
In response to an inquiry from The Sarasota News Leader, Brian White, the public information officer for the county’s Stormwater Department, provided the following details, via email on Oct. 8, about the St. Armands problems:
“Sarasota County Stormwater staff responded to temporary roadway flooding in the St. Armands area during the heavy rainfall on Oct. 6.
“Approximately 2.8 to 3.5 inches of rain fell over a period of a few hours. The volume and intensity of rainfall over that relatively short period resulted in significant amounts of water entering the stormwater system at once. The combination of that rainfall and the low-lying conditions in portions of St. Armands contributed to the temporary roadway flooding.
“At approximately 5:42 p.m., Stormwater staff received an overload alarm involving Pump 1 at Stormwater Pump Station 7010. The second pump at that station remained operational, and staff responded by manually resetting Pump 1. The pump returned to normal operation at approximately 6:48 p.m.
“Pump Station 7010 does not serve the portion of St. Armands Circle near the Columbia Restaurant where the roadway flooding was reported. Based on the station’s service area and staff’s assessment of the event, the temporary pump issue did not contribute to the flooding in that location.
“Stormwater staff received a roadway-flooding call for St. Armands at approximately 7:17 p.m. and subsequently assessed conditions in the area. By approximately 9:30 p.m., the flooding had substantially receded, and by approximately 10:45 p.m., only minor puddling remained.
“In recent weeks, Sarasota County Stormwater crews have been actively inspecting and maintaining drainage infrastructure in the St. Armands area. Crews have inspected 181 stormwater structures and completed more than 80 stormwater structure and pipeline cleanings as part of ongoing efforts to maintain the area’s drainage capacity.
“As heavy rain continued on Oct. 7, Sarasota County Stormwater maintained a presence in St. Armands, including stationing a vacuum truck and crew in the area to monitor conditions and assist with localized drainage issues as needed.”
The Resilient SRQ project
During the Sept. 18 joint meeting of the Sarasota City and County commissions, Stormwater Director Quartermaine noted plans for the St. Armands project that the County Commission approved with funding out of the nearly $210.1-million federal grant that the county received in January 2025, to respond to unmet needs in the aftermath of the 2024 storm season.
That initiative, Quartermaine explained, will include both resiliency work and an assessment of the potential “hardening” of infrastructure to make it less vulnerable to storm surge and other types of flooding. The potential also exists for the addition of pump stations, he continued, “or just beefing up the pump stations that we currently have.”
A contractor has been selected for that undertaking, Quartermaine noted. “We’re negotiating the scope [of work],” he added.
That project, like the others planned with money out of the federal grant, will have to be completed before the end of 2031 to comply with the stipulations imposed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), through its Community Development Block Grant Program.
On Nov. 3, 2025, the Sarasota City Commission formally agreed to make the request to the county for about $25 million to pay for what is called the St. Armands Resiliency and Flood Mitigation Program. That entails the retrofitting of pump stations, plus the acquisition of new generators and tide check valves, implementation of underground storage areas, and the installation of permeable pavement and deployable barriers. The city would provide a $480,000 match out of the penny sales tax — or, Surtax — funding it receives through a county program, the city’s Public Works Department director, Nikesh Patel, reported to them before their vote.
The County Commission in December 2025 ended up approving $13.5 million for the St. Armands initiative, as the board members tried to divvy up money for a variety of proposals through what is called the county’s Resilient SRQ Program