SANIBEL, Fla. — Sanibel Island has two spillway systems that control stormwater runoff but not storm surges. Fox 4 Meteorologist Andrew Shipley reviewed from the city how the levee system works and how the city of Sanibel plans for future storms.

“We know our residents are concerned about the amount of water coming onto the island,” City Manager Dana Souza said.

Whether it’s 70 inches of rainfall or three separate storm surge events from Debbie, Helene and Milton, it’s fair to say the city of Sanibel has seen its fair share of water this year.

“There were questions about the city’s levee management, whether we were releasing water proactively or properly,” Souza said.

Souza addressed those concerns Friday.

“We’re getting good forecasts from your station and we’re monitoring the National Weather Service very closely so we can forecast rainfall and increase capacity,” Souza said.

Increasing capacity can also be a balancing act.

“This is an absolutely unique way for us to balance the flood protection it provides and our goals as a sacred island, a unique stormwater management system,” said Director of Natural Resources Holly Milbrandt.

One of Milbrandt’s goals is to ensure wetlands have enough water.

“The benefits of having water in this inland wetland system in terms of fire protection are, again, water for wildlife and it prevents salt water from entering our freshwater areas through the movement of groundwater,” Milbrandt said.

As we move into the future, one of the things the city will have to contend with will be sea level rise. Sea levels around the island have risen 8 inches since 1965, according to the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation.

“When you look at this as a whole, you might not think it’s a lot,” SCCF CEO James Evans said. “But when you look at it from a stormwater management perspective, seawater levels are higher than they were decades ago. “It retains rainwater.”

This means it will take even longer to evacuate the island, especially considering the average elevation is about four and a half feet.

City Engineer Oisin Dolley explains that the operation of the dams by taking advantage of the tides also plays a role.

“As sea levels rise over time, tides will generally be higher, which will restrict and shorten the amount of time we can open the gates,” Dolley said.

As for storm surge, these weir systems are not designed to discharge this type of water.

“Even though we kept levels as low as possible before the storm surge events, that didn’t really matter,” Dolley said. “When the surge flooded this system with this intensity, it filled the entire basin of our system in a matter of minutes.”

But that doesn’t mean the city isn’t doing a better job of extracting water from the island and becoming more sustainable.

“Next year there will be a lot of public meetings and a lot of discussions about how we make Sanibel more resilient for the next 50 years and what projects we need to undertake to achieve that,” Souza said.