Tampa Bay leaders talk resiliency strategies as hurricane season approaches
With the start of the Atlantic hurricane season looming June 1st, leaders from across the Tampa Bay region gathered for a two-day conference on resiliency strategies to respond to climate change and sea-level rise.
As the 2023 season nears, the destruction Hurricane Ian wreaked across Southwest Florida last year was a point of concern running through the third annual Tampa Bay Regional Resiliency Leadership Summit, which the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council put on May 4th and 5th at the Hilton Clearwater Beach. Originally forecast to hit Tampa Bay, Ian made landfall as a category 4 in Southwest Florida, causing nearly $113 billion in property damage and taking the lives of 66 people.
Federal and state funding flowing to Tampa Bay
The Tampa Bay region is part of a $4.9 million oyster reef habitat restoration project that will stretch along the west coast of Florida to Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. Through it, oyster shells will be collected from restaurants, recycled and put back into the water at oyster reef restoration sites, protecting shorelines and improving water quality.
Another $2.25 million will go toward a Pinellas County government project in partnership with Keep Pinellas Beautiful and the Tampa Bay Estuary Program to remove more than 200,000 tires from Tampa Bay and the Gulf that were placed in the water from the 1960s to 1980s as artificial reefs.