A week after Hurricane Idalia’s storm surge caused flooding around Tampa Bay, the water is gone, but piles of debris stacked at curbs stand as a reminder of the damage caused in some of the hardest-hit areas. Cleanups were underway throughout the region this week, clearing waterlogged furniture and structural remains. Some governments in places beset by flooding, such as Pasco County and .
The Unicorn Hill Christmas Tree Farm in Gainesville was where John and Cathryn Gregory, now both 78, were able to fulfill a dream of owning a farm full of pine trees.
The site, sustainability.pinellas.gov, details the county’s six-step Sustainability and Resiliency Action Plan (SRAP), and explains what it’s doing to protect the 25 percent of Pinellas land in the Coastal High Hazard area, where communities are deemed extremely vulnerable to storms and floods.
While some storm-protection projects like canals and beach restoration aim to mitigate flooding, a big chunk of the plan centers on measuring and lowering carbon emissions. Phil Compton, senior organizing representative at Sierra Club’s St. Pete office, thinks this is a good place to start.
“If you only focus on resilience and forget sustainability, we forget the mitigation of the things that you’re doing that are contributing to climate change,” Compton told