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Planner and committee members warn that 25- and 100-year design storms may not reflect recent extreme rainfall
Summary
Staff and committee members said engineers design to set return-period storms but local experience of consecutive, larger storms suggests those standards may not be adequate and the jurisdiction may need to reassess design thresholds.
Staff and committee members told the board that the design standards engineers use (for example, 25-year and 100-year storms) may not account for recent sequences of larger storms and extreme rainfall. "The storms that we have, the back to back storms that we had are larger than what the design storms are required for an engineer to meet in the state of Florida under both Lake Heaven's code currently," a staff member said, characterizing the recent events as exceeding past design assumptions.
A committee member cited recent local rain events totaling more than 20 inches over a short period and said that what once was considered a 500-year event may be becoming more common, arguing the jurisdiction should consider raising standards. Staff cautioned that any change would require community discussion and not be imposed retroactively on applications already in process.
