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St. Petersburg's median home was built in 1969. In September 2024 the tide gauge here broke a record that had stood since 1947.
Where the water comes from
Salt water, mostly. This is the most surge-exposed city we serve, and the housing is old enough that the plumbing is failing on its own schedule as well.
Hurricane Helene
26–27 September 2024
The St. Petersburg tide gauge — the longest record in Tampa Bay, going back to 1947 — reached 6.31 feet. The previous record was 3.97 feet, set by Hurricane Elena in 1985. The city reported more than a hundred miles of roads affected. Shore Acres, Snell Isle, Coquina Key, Venetian Isles and Riviera Bay took bay water indoors by midday.
Hurricane Milton
October 2024
Fifteen to eighteen inches of rain, the highest totals in the metro. Two weeks after Helene, into houses that were already open.
Tropical Storm Eta
November 2020
Shore Acres again, with four inches or more standing inside houses. By the time Helene arrived it was the fourth flood there in four years.
What is built here
That single number explains most of what we do here. A house built in 1969 in Pinellas County has cast iron drain lines under the slab, and they are now past sixty years in sandy, mineral-heavy soil.
The waterfront neighbourhoods — Shore Acres, Venetian Isles, Coquina Key — are dredge-and-fill peninsulas built low in the 1960s and 70s, concrete block on slab, close to the water by design.
Inland, the Historic Old Northeast and Historic Kenwood carry 1910s and 20s bungalows, some of them raised. Between the two sits a wide band of mid-century block ranches on terrazzo.
Shore Acres and Riviera Bay are formally designated FEMA Repetitive Loss Areas, and the city publishes an annual analysis of them. That is a matter of public record, not an opinion about the neighbourhood.
What we are called for
Not a risk, a timetable. Both the City of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County run rebate programmes to help owners inspect and reline failing private laterals, which tells you how widespread it is.
Storm surge is Category 3 under the IICRC standard — grossly contaminated. That means flood cuts, discarding porous material, and treating the HVAC and ducts as contaminated. Homeowners push back on that scope constantly. We would rather explain why once than argue about it later.
Concrete block and terrazzo hold bound moisture. Surface readings come back dry while the core is still wet. Drying these is a specialty problem, not a three-day fan rental, and reinstalling flooring too early is how a dried house grows mould anyway.
Along Snell Isle Boulevard NE and Appian Way, an open drainage ditch overtops when a high tide lands on top of heavy rain. It does not need a hurricane.
Getting to you
Reached from Tampa over the Howard Frankland or the Gandy. Both close in a storm — see the note below on what that means for timing.
Call and tell us the cross streets. We will tell you what to do before anyone arrives — where the shut-off usually is in a house like yours, what to move, and what to leave exactly where it is for the photographs.