MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. – Above normal high tide coupled with surge from Hurricane Michael is creating the perfect storm for coastal flooding along the Gulf coast.
TRACKING MICHAEL: See latest path and spaghetti models
At Hubbard’s Marina on John’s Pass Boardwalk, Dylan Hubbard is preparing to have crews on his boats all night to monitor the rising waters and making adjustments to the tie lines as needed.
“There’s been a lot of preparation,” said Hubbard, whose family has owned the marina for generations.
It’s not the rough waves they’re watching, it’s the rising water.
“The timing of this hurricane, on that new moon high tide, is extremely bad timing,” he said.
With a high tide more than two feet higher than normal and surge from Michael, Hubbard says he’s not taking any chances securing his two large party boat vessels docked at the boardwalk. They’re too big to take out of the water. The rest of his fleet has either been taken out of the water or moved to an area up the canal.
“A three-, four-, five- foot change in tides if you’re not prepared for it will break dock lines, send a boat floating away," Hubbard said.
Their lifeline lies in the lines holding the boats to the dock.
“The longer the line, the more the boat has the ability to go up and down,” Hubbard said. “And then we have crews standing by to adjust those lines as the tide comes up or comes down.”
The impacts from this very-high tide are already apparent.
Tuesday afternoon, some streets in St. Pete Beach and Pass-A-Grille were impassable. A school bus dropping kids off was briefly stuck in water covering the street at 36th and Casablanca avenues.
“This is not a good thing, and it hasn’t even started raining,” said St. Pete Beach resident Hal Paul. “Really, you’re saying to yourself, ‘wait a minute now, this shouldn’t be this way.’”
Back at the docks, they’ve been through this before and they’re prepared as they can be for the unpredictable.
“This is the way we make our living and this is the way we feed our families so we have to protect these vessels,” Hubbard said.
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