Following the devastating landfall of Hurricane Michael in 2018, the first Category 5 storm to strike the U.S. mainland since 1992, the Florida Resilient Cities (FRC) program started a multi-year partnership with the City of Port St. Joe. This partnership started in 2019 with a visioning and needs assessment workshop to discuss long-term hurricane recovery needs and chronic local challenges, including nuisance flooding, housing shortages, and water quality. The community narratives from these initial sessions informed foundational research projects in 2020, establishing early strategies for municipal infrastructure, cultural preservation, and a park-system design studio.

In 2021, the partnership expanded to focus on North Port St. Joe, prioritizing neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, and stormwater management along the historic Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Recognizing that localized flooding was linked to broader geography, FRC conducted the Watershed Strategies Study. The study used field-based walking workshops, historical plans reviews, and flood risk modeling to deliver strategic stormwater management recommendations for the Central Channel and Avenue A basins.

This multi-year effort culminated in the FDEP-funded “Resilient Port St. Joe” project, which advances the City into formal adaptation planning. This initiative focuses on conducting a comprehensive exposure and sensitivity analysis and adaptation planning to protect critical assets against flooding. Grounded in rigorous data analysis and community engagement, this project employed innovative digital tools and proposed complementary land use planning instruments, positioning the city to compete for state resilience funds.