Were Punta Gorda waterfront houses flooded from"Charlie"

[MikMal]

Originally Posted by JERSEY MAN

Thanks again. In Jersey they used to have wooden bulkheads, now they are replacing them with fiberglass panels. I very rarely see any new ones built with wood. Concrete is extremely rare.

Maryland HAD wooden bulkheads, but then got away from allowing new ones. Instead they allowed rip-rap stone. Now, even that is frowned upon. The new thing is a "soft" shoreline, where the shore is gently sloped to the water and vegetation is planted to break up the waves. Unfortunately, the water quality in the Chesapeake is so bad that it doesn't support sea grasses anymore. After a while, the planted vegetation dies and you're left with an eroding shoreline, which is what you tried to prevent in the first place!

Needless to say, I really enjoy just sitting out at my PC seawall and watching the mullet go airborne.

[mrs.cool]

Originally Posted by HarborRat

I got the same error in Chrome, switched to IE and got in no problem.

Thanks. i'll try that.

[Big House]

I think that there are two thoughts here 1)flooding, 2) storm surge.
General Flooding - it does depend on where you are. If you are on an inland area and along a major water flow, river or channel and in a lower area - you can definitely flood in a rain event. These areas are all mapped, and elevations are shown. It is important to review these flood maps, and confirm the elevation of all the improvements on your property. If your house is at elevation 20.00, you may be sitting on Mt. Dora and not have to worry about flooding. LOL In PGI the housing elevations range from about 9.00 - 12.00, some more some less. Even at these elevations flooding is not likely. There are too many areas surrounding the improvement elevations that will flood and hold / absorb a huge capacity of water, and the tides will evacuate a tremendous amount of water long before your elevation will flood.

Storm Surge - During a hurricane, storm surge is a big worry. However, the wind direction and water flow needs to be just right in order to have water damage from a storm surge. Charlie is an example of that. It came straight at Punta Gorda, and the damage done here was done from wind, not storm surge. Debby was a better example of storm surge, or better yet how it works. Debby skirted along the west coast (not hitting land near here, but much further north). We didn't have any flooding or issues while it was south of us, or west of us, it wasn't until it was north - and - west of us (and it sat there) that it pulled enough water up from its wind direction to essentially hold the tides from draining out of Boca Grand Pass, and with all the rain it dropped caused the water levels to rise. The water level rise was slow and steady and flooded low lying areas. Remember all this water has a lot of weigh and pressure and wants to move to lower areas (out to sea), so it takes a lot of pressure to hold it for a long time - a hurricane has the potential to do that. Even so, only the lower areas (that expect flooding once in a while were flooded).

Now if Debby was a much bigger storm, it could pull a lot more water from the gulf to force it into this area. Even that is NOT a likely scenario because the entire area around SWFL in the Gulf is very shallow, so there is no place for the storm to get a lot of water to build a wall of water from - unless it brings it with it. Then, it would have to come from the western side of the gulf, straight across, and turn north of us at the last minute. When they talk storm surge they talk about a wall of water - which happens in places, and sometimes it is possible to get a wall of water / storm surge of 20' even 30'. But this is really not likely in this area, because in order to achieve that you need deep water sources for it to build / not dissipate, not buffer. The shore line in SWFL if more prone to buffer and dissipate that kind of surge, not help build it. Again, I'm not an expert on this, but have spoken to a some people that have decades of experience here and have studied this - a lot more than I have!

I may be fos, but the longer I live here, and hear this theory the more sucked in I become. Even so - if they call for a Cat 3 hurricane - I'm going to hide away from here, and hope I don't have to start my new generator when I come back! ;-)

[JERSEY MAN]

Are there any locks in Punta Gorda that I should be aware of. I remember looking at some waterfront houses down by the Rotundo Circle area in Port Charlotte about ten years and I think the boats had to go through a lock to get out to the bay. It looked like the canals in there were mostly freshwater, I could be wrong though.

[Big House]

Originally Posted by JERSEY MAN

Are there any locks in Punta Gorda that I should be aware of. I remember looking at some waterfront houses down by the Rotundo Circle area in Port Charlotte about ten years and I think the boats had to go through a lock to get out to the bay. It looked like the canals in there were mostly freshwater, I could be wrong though.

There are many freshwater canals. Some are pre-existing, naturally made canals that water has always run though, and many are man-made canals designed specifically for storm drainage, and many were designed in some of the larger communities for other purposes like sources of fill that is used to raise the elevation of improvements above the water table. Punta Gorda is an example of man-made canals. The areas canals here was all mined and raising the areas where the houses and roads now stand behind the canal (retaining walls). Many think the area was all a mangrove swamp that was mined to make the land PGI stand on. In-fact much of PGI was flat low land, but not a swamp. The closer you get to Ponce De Leon Park the more swampish it gets. The developers used huge earthwork equipment to cut the channels, build the retaining walls, and then grade out the improvement elevations in PGI, after areas were complete, they would remove the ends of the canals that they cut, and allow the water to enter. Some canals (down by Alligator Creek) were cut, just to allow the flow of fresh water (coming from the Peace River) all the way through PGI so that there would never be any standing water. They did this because the Corp of Engineers were concerned that standing water in the area would enhance mosquito growth, and so - we really don't have a huge bug problem here because there is always running water through the area. We have some, and they spray (but don't have to over the populated areas).

Yes, there are locks around. Primarily because they want to control the flow of water, maintain a water table - there are a 1000 engineering reasons for it. Again, its main purpose is to control the flow of water, not for navigational purposes, but some provide for navigational uses as well. Not everyone knows, but you can navigate all the way across the state from the East coast to the West coast through Lake Okeechobee (yep its spelled correctly - I checked). Along the way there are many locks (and Alligators - different story). A friend of mine boated all the way across this summer.

So, yes there are many locks on the fresh water canals. The purpose is to control water flow, but some are navigable, many are not, and most do not reach the gulf. Many were used as sources of fill for improvements, and for storm water drainage purposes. A tremendous amount of water perks into the soil from them. They hold a lot of great fish, bass, and other fresh water species. Alligators are often attracted to them. The FWC does a great job inspecting and monitoring them.

[redfish353]

Jersey Man-

There aren't any locks in Punta Gorda (PGI and BSI), but keep in mind that your location here has a big part of how long your boat ride is out to Charlotte Harbor. If you are into fishing (like I am), I don't want to drive an hour through no wake zones to get out to the Harbor. This was very important to us when we were deciding where to buy years ago. We LOVED Burnt Store Isles because of the newer homes (the majority are all new).....but didn't like the long boat ride. We ended up looking (and deciding) on a newer area of PGI that has a very short trip out to the harbor (about 10 minutes from our house). Save yourself the work........go onto Zillow and type in Deborah Drive and then look for homes for sale in that area. Make sure you stay south of Aqui Esta during your search and almost all of the homes will be newer and well kept. There are some serious steals right now if you are looking, and I really don't think you'll find a nicer area. And the $500 tax for the seawall is just amazing. It's the reason this city is so well kept and when you cruise the canals here it is just so well maintained. We've had one sea wall issue and the city was just great about coming out and fixing it. They were here the next day and did a fantastic job. It would have cost me $3,000 easy to have to hire someone to do the work.

[redfish353]

Jersey man i forgot to mention that although there are no locks in PGI or BSI, there are some fixed bridges in certain areas. This is important if you are into having a sailboat. Hence, when you search you will often see "sailboat" water or "powerboat" water. You won't have any of the locks that Big House mentioned in Punta Gorda....and that in and of itself is a reason to buy here. I had dealt with a lock system in Cape Coral before and it was a HUGE pain in the A$$. Never again...... if i want to go out fishing I want to just lower the boat from the lift and go.

[JERSEY MAN]

Thanks to everyone for the heads up. This is invaluable information that will help with my search. Going down in Oct. to check the area out and it feels alot better being informed.

[Big House]

Originally Posted by redfish353

Jersey Man-

There aren't any locks in Punta Gorda (PGI and BSI), but keep in mind that your location here has a big part of how long your boat ride is out to Charlotte Harbor. If you are into fishing (like I am), I don't want to drive an hour through no wake zones to get out to the Harbor. This was very important to us when we were deciding where to buy years ago. We LOVED Burnt Store Isles because of the newer homes (the majority are all new).....but didn't like the long boat ride. We ended up looking (and deciding) on a newer area of PGI that has a very short trip out to the harbor (about 10 minutes from our house). Save yourself the work........go onto Zillow and type in Deborah Drive and then look for homes for sale in that area. Make sure you stay south of Aqui Esta during your search and almost all of the homes will be newer and well kept. There are some serious steals right now if you are looking, and I really don't think you'll find a nicer area. And the $500 tax for the seawall is just amazing. It's the reason this city is so well kept and when you cruise the canals here it is just so well maintained. We've had one sea wall issue and the city was just great about coming out and fixing it. They were here the next day and did a fantastic job. It would have cost me $3,000 easy to have to hire someone to do the work.

Great point about the distance out redfish.
BTW, I wrote a journal of my experience when I was considering buying here. It is a few pages back on this forum. Its called PUNTA GORDA ANYONE. I spent a year looking and exploring this area. I got a lot of help, positive and negative, but I posted and got a lot of questions about the area. It is probably the most read thread on any of the boards around here. If anyone is really interested in this area - its worth a read. there is also some funny stuff on there too.