Manatee County puts $125 million toward stormwater, flood projects

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WWSB) - Manatee County commissioners are moving forward with $125 million in infrastructure projects aimed at recovering from hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton and preparing for future storms.Much of the funding will go toward stormwater and flood mitigation, including work in communities that have experienced repeated flooding. The federal disaster recovery funding will support 12 county projects and 10 projects across six cities and one town. “I think the situation along the coast of Florida across our county and in other counties is thatour infrastructure is aging, storms are getting worse, and we’re experiencing even more severe storms and even flood events year after year" Commissioner Tal Siddique said. “You know, this year we’re, thankfully, fingers crossed, you know, storms are coming to hit us. And we’re, we’ve spent about more than $10 million over the past year preparing heavy rains like this by clearing out the vast majority of our stormwater systems