Northeast Florida recovers from Matthew, awaits comprehensive federal help

As Hurricane Matthew becomes a memory, and yet another addition to the pantheon of tropical weather events affecting Northeast Florida, politicians — such as CFO Jeff Atwater, Sen. Aaron Bean, Jacksonville Beach Mayor Charlie Latham, and Atlantic Beach Mayor Mitch Reeves — convened on a rainy, windswept Jacksonville Beach Wednesday afternoon to discuss last week’s destruction and the recovery going forward.

For most people who suffered loss of property in the storm, the question is an existential one: will there be resources to make us whole?

CFO Atwater expressed confidence on that front Wednesday.

Private insurance companies feel confident in their position, and there is not any financial issue for insurance compensation, Atwater said.

And that’s a good thing. Though it’s still early in the process, Atwater estimates Matthew was an “excess of a billion-dollar event for the private sector.”

But for consumers with property damage, there will be “no issue.”

Also in good shape: Citizens Property Insurance, which Atwater estimated could pay $200 to $250 million in claims.

On that front, there will be no issue either, Atwater said. Nor will there be an issue with the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, which has all necessary resources and, if needed, the ability to finance other needs.

“We are in the best position we’ve been in in 20 years,” Atwater said.

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Though on the insurance side, the private and public sector is in good shape, there are still lingering questions after the storm.

One question — apparent to anyone who surveyed the destruction of Jacksonville Beach’s dunes, which allowed flooding of 1st and 2nd Streets during the storm — is the possibility of beach renourishment.

Atwater, who spent Wednesday in Northeast Florida, and came to Jacksonville Beach from the devastated coastline of St. Johns County, expects beach renourishment will “certainly appear in next year’s budget.”

However, said Sen. Bean, “session is too late” for the work that needs doing sooner than later, with Nor’easters a recurrent impact in Northeast Florida during the fall.

Federal resources, including through FEMA, are necessary to bring the beaches back to where they need to be.

“People are waiting,” said Atwater. “Is FEMA going to take the final steps?”

These are serious issues; in a drive up Jacksonville Beach, one could see the poles in the sand, installed after Hurricane Dora in 1964, which buttressed the dunes.

However, the positive, said Atwater, was the effective collaboration of local and state leadership.

“People should be thankful how quickly the governor was out,” Atwater said, adding that local leadership was equally on top of the situation.

Impacts were worse down south; on Anastasia Island, for example, Atwater saw houses that were total losses, with water flowing “halfway up the walls.”

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Indeed, said Mayor Latham, Gov. Rick Scott has been a help, having pledged assistance over the weekend.

Latham noted the governor offered tangible help during the storm as well.

“When the dunes breached, flooding 3^rd Street,” Latham said, the governor told him that pumps were on the way.

Indeed, they arrived within 24 hours.

Latham offered a “lot of praise for the governor and Mayor Curry,” who was a constant presence during the storm at the Emergency Operations Center and after the storm throughout Duval County.

Curry, said Latham, is a “consummate thinker … you engage him, he engages back.”

There was, thankfully, no loss of life at Jacksonville Beach during the storm … and that was a function of a vagary in the track.

Latham noted when he and other regional leaders were watching the storm approach on Friday, it was a Category 4, and then there was a “wobble,” a “last minute turn” to the east that proved providential.

“If it hadn’t wobbled,” Latham said, “hundreds of people would have been dead.”

Even with a compulsory evacuation order, it’s hard to tell how many people complied at the beaches.

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If you were unaware that a hurricane grazed Jacksonville Beach, you might not immediately realize what happened upon first glance.

Power was restored quickly; 91 percent of all circuits were restored within 24 hours, which City Manager George Forbes attributes to the fact that 70 to 80 percent of the system is underground, and that employees are “totally committed” to the job.

However, the devastation of the iconic Jacksonville Beach pier tells the tale.

Forbes described how boards popping off the structure were actually designed to do that.

What wasn’t designed: the concrete pilings being lifted by the ocean.

“The further out you go,” Forbes said, there’s “total destruction, then nothing.”

Repair or replacement costs have yet to be determined.

The hope is FEMA will do its part on this and other matters.