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Engineers present draft vulnerability assessment identifying nine focus areas and funding pathway for Fort Pierce resilience projects
Summary
City engineering and Kimley‑Horn presented a grant‑funded vulnerability assessment identifying nine focus areas (including Fort Pierce Inlet and Downtown/River’s Edge), mapping flooding scenarios and city‑owned critical assets to guide future stormwater master planning and grant applications.
City engineering staff and consultants from Kimley‑Horn and Associates presented a draft comprehensive vulnerability assessment to the Fort Pierce City Commission on June 8, arguing the study is the first step toward securing resilience infrastructure funding.
Venisha Barnes, the city's stormwater engineer, said the $159,000 Resilient Florida planning grant funded the work and that the assessment is required to qualify for future infrastructure grants. Consultants Shelby Graziani and Alicia Sarrisi described the methodology: they modeled 24 storm scenarios — combining sea level rise, storm surge, tidal flooding and future intensified rainfall — then overlaid those floodplains on the city’s inventory of assets to produce exposure and sensitivity maps.
The assessment identified nine focus areas for prioritized hardening. The presentation highlighted two: the Fort Pierce Inlet (which the consultants said contains about 59 city‑owned critical assets, including an older wastewater treatment facility and the jetty that helps protect downtown) and the Downtown Fort Pierce/River’s Edge District (about 110 critical assets, including marinas, port operations, City Hall and the Public Works complex). The consultants emphasized the jetty’s role as protective infrastructure and noted that although one wastewater facility scored high vulnerability, a newer relocated facility was modeled as not vulnerable under the scenarios tested.
Commissioners pressed presenters on whether the assessment changes flood‑insurance designations; Shelby Graziani said FEMA maps, not vulnerability assessments prepared for state grant compliance, determine flood‑insurance zones. Staff said the assessment will inform an updated stormwater master plan and is intended to support grant applications and potential code updates to raise local design standards. The consultants said the maps and GIS deliverables will become city assets once the FDEP approves the final report.
Commissioners asked for follow‑up briefings and called for cross‑departmental work (engineering, planning, public works, utilities and finance) to prioritize the highest‑risk facilities for hardening and to pursue state and federal funding for measures such as jetty reinforcement and beach renourishment.
