- April 3, 2025
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After waiting over six months to hear the findings of an independent investigation ordered by Manatee County to explain why so many streets, neighborhoods and homes flooded during Hurricane Debby on Aug. 5, Summerfield Bluffs resident Jill Sauchinitz said she was disappointed by the county’s presentation.
Hurricane Debby caused major damage to Sauchinitz’s home. Her family was displaced until just before Christmas. She described the experience as both financially and emotionally draining.
Now that she’s home, she lives in fear that her home will flood again.
“I went into that (meeting) openminded, trying to focus on the future,” Sauchinitz said. “And I turned off that meeting feeling like they didn’t give me any hope or specific actions that are going to start now. What is going to happen with the Braden River?”
The meeting was held Feb. 19 at the Manatee County Administrative Building.
No decisive actions were taken, because as Commission Chair George Kruse noted, it was a work session, not a meeting. Staff members can listen to what commissioners say and take actions that they have the authority to take, but motions by commissioners can only be made during official meetings.
Work sessions are meant to disseminate information only. In this case, the session disseminated 100 PowerPoint slides worth of information from the Hurricane Debby investigation findings to possible stormwater solutions and how much it will cost to dredge the Braden River.
The investigation was conducted by Patrick Tara, principal water resources engineer for the consulting firm Intera. He has 36 years of experience, more than 30 of them working in Florida.
Public Works Director Chad Butzow said the report’s intent was to answer the question of whether or not the flooding events that occurred around Hurricane Debby were tied to the release of water from the Lake Manatee Dam.
To answer that question, Tara looked at the timing of the peaks at different river stations.
He found that the Manatee River at the Rye Bridge “responded as expected, peaking after the peak release occurred (accounting for travel time).”
He said the Braden River at River Club Boulevard peaked before the station at Rye, so the water coming from the dam could not have caused the Braden River to peak and homes in Lakewood Ranch to flood.
There wasn’t enough travel time for the water to get from the dam through the Manatee River to the Braden River to be present when the Braden River had peaked.
Tara went through the same data for the Parrish area. He also simulated four different scenarios of water discharges.
“The common thread in all these analyses is that rainfall runoff is the dominant force,” he said.
Braden River at River Club Boulevard received 11.57 inches in a 24-hour period, which exceeds a 100-year storm design. A 25-year storm system can handle 8 inches of rain in 24 hours; a 100-year system can handle 10 inches.
Tara said the dam release and storm surge were only minor contributing factors in the flooding.
From the start, Manatee County has maintained its stance that the dam release did not cause flooding in Lakewood Ranch. Engineers for Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, Lakewood Ranch’s parent company, came to the same conclusion after their own investigation.
Sauchinitz remains unconvinced because she said emergency vehicles were staged outside her neighborhood when Manatee County issued alerts to residents that water was being released from the dam and residents should evacuate.
Neighbors also said they were told by emergency responders to evacuate because the dam was about to be opened.
“I physically saw the surge of water, a tsunami surge of water that we’ve never seen before with any storm,” Sauchinitz said. “Until someone can show me where (the 18 billion gallons of water released from the dam) went, it’s hard for me to say it wasn’t the dam (that flooded my home).”
Thomas Gerstenberger, stormwater engineering division manager for Manatee County, presented commissioners with options to reduce flooding across the county.
There were operational options, such as obtaining easements to perform ongoing maintenance. There were also policy options, such as modernizing regulatory standards for stormwater management.
Options for the Braden River included four stormwater projects that are under consideration to be funded by the over $252 million community block grant the county is receiving from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
There are currently over $963 million worth of requests for that grant, so there is no guarantee that even one of the Braden River projects will be funded.
The submission to HUD will be finalized by the end of April. These are the four projects staff submitted.
An automated outfall structure is a remotely operated system that can lower water levels in stormwater facilities ahead of major storms.
An outfall structure was installed prior to Hurricane Milton in October at the 45th Street stormwater facility that’s located north of State Road 70. Lowering the water level can create 2.5 acre-feet of flood storage volume before a major rain event.
Gerstenberger also provided a cost estimate to perform maintenance on the Braden River between Lakewood Ranch Boulevard and River Club Boulevard.
To remove 3 feet of sediment and any necessary trees and vegetation, the estimated cost is between $750,000 and $1 million. Obtaining the required state and federal permits could take up to two years.
After SMR identified two possible blockages in the Braden River — sediment buildup under the bridge at River Club Boulevard and a tee box installed by the River Club Golf Course — Commissioner Jason Bearden told the East County Observer he’d look into options to address those two issues on an emergency basis.
However, Deputy County Administrator Evan Pilachowski stated that, based on updated modeling, the county does not agree with SMR’s assertion that the flooding was caused by those two locations.
“We are looking at potential ways to expedite removal of downed trees and debris. Removal of sediment is a more challenging issue for permitting that is not my area of expertise, but I know we are researching it now,” Pilachowski said by email. “We want to make sure that any solution that is implemented is effective and avoid ineffective solutions that only give false expectations.”
Neither issue was addressed during the work session nor were any other issues within the Braden River that would have caused flooding to Summerfield other than rainfall.
When the East County Observer sat down with SMR CEO Rex Jensen on Feb. 7, he was confident in his team’s investigation.
“I think the Summerfield residents are the victims of the River Club blockages,” he said. “Somebody filled in the Braden River to build a golf hole. That ought to be removed or modified to get back to the original cross section of the river.”
Sauchinitz said the county “poured salt on the wound” when its presentation highlighted the county crews that remove debris and vegetation and use aquatic spraying to control vegetation growth.
“My neighbors that live on the river say that there are fallen trees from Hurricane Ian; that’s unacceptable,” she said. “They have all these crews, why haven’t they been to the Braden River?”
Jensen said he would bulldoze the tee box if he could, but it’s not his property.
Commissioner Robert McCann, who was absent from the work session, held his arm straight up in the air at his Town Hall meeting Feb. 5 and said, “I’ll take responsibility for cleaning (the Braden River) up.”
But during the work session, Gerstenberger said natural systems, such as the Braden River, are more difficult to maintain than the county’s manmade drainage systems.
The county doesn’t always have access to natural systems. One recent example is Sand Branch Creek. Hurricane Debby split the creek open and did major damage, but the damage was on private property.
On Feb. 18, the county executed a Right of Entry Agreement with the homeowners to make repairs.
Gerstenberger said securing state and federal permits to address improvements to natural systems is “a tedious regulatory process.”
Then, there’s the question of where that natural system lies within a Homeowners Association or a Community Development District.
“Right now, we’re dealing with River Club having something affecting Summerfield,” Kruse said. “We need to have conversations with all these neighborhoods and effectively take over management.”
Taking over management will require funding. Whether the county decides to add the management to its own operational budget or charge it back to the HOAs and CDDs is another decision that will have to be made.
Commissioner Tal Siddique said the county needs a dedicated stormwater fund, and he wants to see it on a ballot, just as the Conservation Tax Referendum was on the ballot in 2020.
The referendum to conserve land was approved by more than 70% of residents.
“I think we need to put (a stormwater fund) in front of voters,” Siddique said. “Voters, if they understand that there’s a clearly defined scope for these funds, they’ve shown us they’re willing to tax themselves.”
