This Florida Neighborhood Has Survived Many a Flood. But Helene? Mother Jones [Video]

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Domonique Tomlinson didn’t know much about the Shore Acres neighborhood of St. Petersburg, Florida, when she bought a house here four years ago, but she learned fast. Just a few weeks after she moved into her single-story teal home, a high tide overwhelmed her street’s drainage system and pushed water into her house. The same thing happened again during Hurricane Idalia in 2023; she lost furniture and belongings worth thousands of dollars. Then there was just the everyday flooding to contend with. It happened more times than she could count, when she had to wade through calf-high water on her street to get to her teaching job, wiping herself with Lysol when she got to work.

Tomlinson and her husband were racing to install plywood flood panels and sandbags on Wednesday as Shore Acres prepared for a historic storm surge from Category 4 Hurricane Helene. As …