Even on sunny days, Shore Acres can flood. These upgrades should help.

ST. PETERSBURG — Without a drop of rain in the forecast, residents of the low-lying Shore Acres neighborhood still know to watch for water.

When Tampa Bay swells with high tides, salt water pushes up into outdated drainage pipes and douses streets. The problem is so prevalent that some asphalt roads are worn and cracked. Some residents even watch tide charts to map the best time to commute.

Working to battle against sunny-day floods, city-hired construction crews on Wednesday morning were busy upgrading a valve that prevents bay water from invading underground pipes. Think of it like a gate: Rainwater can flow out of pipes and away from homes. But salty bay water can’t come in.

This is the fourth so-called backflow preventer installed in recent days, and it’s part of a larger $3.7 million effort to upgrade the neighborhood’s defenses against high tides. All told, 56 valves are scheduled to be replaced across Shore Acres by mid-August, according to Claude Tankersley, the public works administrator for the city of St. Petersburg.

“The community here is very anxious for us to get this work done,” Tankersley said in an interview. He explained that, on an average day, at-risk areas of Shore Acres are only about 2 feet above sea level. “That’s not a lot of room,” he said, especially as sunny-day floods are projected to worsen as seas continue to rise.

The cash injection for the valve upgrades comes from stormwater utility fees and was greenlit by City Council members on Feb. 29, Tankersley said.

Kevin Batdorf has lived in Shore Acres since 1986. High-tide flooding occurs almost monthly, he said, with or without wild weather. But recent storms like Hurricane Idalia and a no-name December storm also underscore the community’s vulnerability to storm-surge flooding, which won’t be stopped by upgraded pipes.

“This is a step forward,” said Batdorf, president of the Shore Acres Civic Association. “It’s not a solution for all of our flooding problems, but it is a solution to sunny-day floods.”

Batdorf said city officials had originally planned to revamp just 14 pipes with new valves, but “we started making noise.” In a letter dated Feb. 21, the civic association asked Mayor Ken Welch and City Council member Ed Montanari for help. The group outlined both short-term and long-term fixes to the neighborhood’s flooding woes, including adding permanent pumping stations, raising roads and repairing the outdated backflow valves.

“It is clear that current measures to stem flood issues, both tidal (sunny day) and surge, are not working,” the letter reads.

Residents had expressed concerns during a February listening session with city leaders, and ultimately council members approved enough funding for 42 additional upgraded valves in the neighborhood.

It’s just the beginning of a long road ahead to stemming flood issues once and for all, Batdorf said.

“I see my neighbors hurting and struggling. It’s time for action,” Batdorf said, adding he hopes the upgrades will eventually help raise property values. “Who wants to live in a neighborhood where you have to drive through salt water every day?”

Once all 56 upgrades are finished in August, the city will determine which of the remaining 90 unprotected outflows in Shore Acres may need to be upgraded, too. The city has also agreed to ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a study on how many of the neighborhood’s homes would need to be elevated before the city is willing to raise its roads, Batdorf said.

It takes about four hours to replace old backwater valves, Tankersley said, and flashlight-wielding crews were up to their necks in manholes off Bayou Grande Boulevard on Wednesday. The city has hired PCL Construction, a national company that has an office in Tampa, to do the work.

The city has also pinpointed other low-lying communities across St. Petersburg in need of additional defenses against high tides, including Bonita Bayou, Riviera Bay and South Pasadena, according to Tankersley.

Mike Higgins, a retired mechanical engineer and a member of the Shore Acres Civic Association, said long-term saltwater flooding can bring corrosive damage to vehicles. It also softens the community’s road base as it dampens, dries and dampens again. That leaves the neighborhood roads withered and in disrepair.

“There’s people out here that have to time when they go to work. They won’t drive through it,” Higgins said. “Water is tearing up the streets. It’s an infrastructure issue.”