Janelle Irwin Taylor
Even though it was some 100 miles offshore from Tampa Bay, Hurricane Helene brought record storm surge to the Tampa Bay area, flooding coastal homes and businesses, those in low-lying areas and even some structures that had never before been at risk of flooding.
Waterways throughout the region and beyond saw peak water levels that didn’t just break records, they shattered them. Port Manatee, for example, saw peak water levels during the historic storm surge of just over 6 feet, nearly doubling the previous record of 3.58 feet, according to preliminary storm surge totals reported by WUSF. The Hillsborough River reached nearly 7 feet, while the Alafia River in Gibsonton saw a staggering 7.21-foot peak.
In St. Pete, surge levels reached more than 6.3 feet, eclipsing the previous record set in 1985 of 4 feet.
That’s where Ed Montanari lives. Montanari, serving his final year as a City Council member and now running for a seat in the Florida House, lives in the low-lying Snell Isle neighborhood.
His home was not spared.
Montanari told Florida Politics the water in his home came about 2.5 feet up in the lowest part of his single-story home, a sunken living room. The rest of his house saw nearly a half-foot of water rush in, ruining anything at ground level, soaking walls and leaving in its wake a mold breeding ground.
His is the story of so many residents throughout the Tampa Bay region who, just two weeks later, would be watching in horror as a second storm — Hurricane Milton — threatened even worse storm surge in what looked like it could be the worst-case scenario for the region.
Thankfully, Milton steered south of Tampa Bay, saving the region from what had been predicted to be new record flooding as high as 15-feet in some areas. And Montanari said the setbacks from storm No. 2 ended up being minimal for him. But the entire experience has left Montanari, his constituents and so many others reeling from back-to-back disasters that not only ruined homes with flood inundation, but toppled trees, damaged properties and left hundreds of thousands without power for days on end.
“I’ve lived here for 23 years and have never flooded,” Montanari said, adding that his neighbors likewise have never experienced the type of flooding that devastated his neighborhood during Helene. Sure, they’ve seen some street flooding, but homes have mostly stayed dry around him. Until now.
Like others, Montanari is not only staring down the barrel of massive home repairs that include removing drywall, thoroughly drying out the interior, replacing floors and appliances and countless mold mitigation measures, he also must navigate replacing two vehicles, a car and a truck that both got flooded out.
“It all got soaked,” he said, noting that his pain is not only for his property, but that of so many others who are going through the same thing, some even worse.
As Montanari recovers, he’s also putting his head down in search of solutions, both for the immediate recovery and for long-term resilience.
“The first step, gets down to basic survival,” he said.
While Montanari, a Republican, is applying to voters for a new job — running against incumbent Democrat Lindsay Cross in House District 60 — he’s still an elected member of City Council and has an obligation to those he represents to ensure help is on the way. That starts with housing.
“A lot of these homes are not habitable, and we already have a housing shortage,” he said. “We’ve got about 10,000 people in the city who are in this position.”
Some, like Montanari, have friends or family to stay with. But with some remediation efforts expected to take months, in some cases more than a year, that may not be a viable solution longer term.
That’s why Montanari said as a City Council member he’s working with state Sen. Nick DiCeglie to establish a program where people are able to perhaps live in habitable trailers on their own properties. It’s a possibility that would provide a workable solution to the housing crisis the storm exacerbated, while also allowing property owners to stay on their properties to oversee remediation construction.
In addition to DiCeglie, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis are also working on solutions. And it wouldn’t be the first time the Federal Emergency Management Agency has employed trailers for such instances, Montanari said.
Montanari, as a candidate for the Florida House, is also looking ahead to a potential first term and solutions that are badly needed at the state level, namely on the state’s property insurance landscape.
There has been much reported on the state’s property insurance woes. Insurers famously left the state after a string of expensive hurricanes in recent years and, while some have returned, or others came in to replace them, property insurance in Florida is still risky business. Insurers don’t like risk. That has left the state’s insurer of last resort, Citizens, overwhelmed with policies to the point that it’s kicking people off its rolls if private insurance is available at rates no more than 20% above the Citizens rate.
“This is why my focus is on property insurance reform,” Montanari said. “People are getting priced out of their homes.”
He has plenty of ideas, but one came to him while watching a 60 Minutes segment addressing property insurance shenanigans. It’s been much discussed throughout the state, because all too many people know the story. The segment addressed situations in which adjusters claimed insurance companies were altering repair estimates to lowball customers.
In some cases, the difference represented a drop in compensation by as much as 98%. One family said after an adjuster evaluated damage from losing their roof two years ago during Hurricane Ian the insurance company offered them just $15,000, despite needing extensive renovation to most of their home.
Montanari said, if elected to the House, he’d like to establish a task force to investigate whether any insurers in Florida are cheating customers.
“My goal is to make sure that the insurance market is stabilized and that the big insurers come back,” Montanari said.
Part of that, he said, is about resilience. Areas near Montanari, such as Shore Acres, have long been prone to flooding. And in recent years, that flooding has sometimes occurred even when there’s no storm to speak of, street flooding that impedes residents from entering or exiting the neighborhood for something as routine as high tide. Montanari would like to expand a program created under the Jeb Bush administration to help Floridians hurricane- and flood-proof their homes.
That program, My Safe Florida Home, was established in 2006 to provide up to $10,000 toward home hardening projects. But it’s been put on hold due to exhausted funding levels for the past two years.
Montanari said he’s talked to his opponent, Cross, about expanding the plan to include flooding — for things like raising homes — and that she had tried “to get something done last year and it didn’t get a hearing.”
“I know I can get that done up in Tallahassee being in the majority,” Montanari said, referring to the GOP’s supermajority in the Legislature. Democrats often have a hard time getting bills heard with limited leadership positions.
And Montanari said tort legislation is also under consideration, despite a huge tort package being signed last year.
“That was a good step because the state of Florida had roughly 8% of the claims nationwide but more than 70% of the litigation,” Montanari said, referring to HB 837, which makes it nearly impossible for policyholders to recoup attorney fees if a lawsuit is successful and makes it harder to file bad faith claims against insurers.
Republicans debating the bill at the time argued insurers were leaving the state due to frivolous lawsuits and that reducing them would clear the way for insurers to return. Montanari echoed those claims.
Asked whether further tort legislation would lead to more situations like the ones highlighted in the 60 Minutes exposé, Montanari said he didn’t think so, because that was largely based on one bad actor. He said policyholders still have the right to sue such companies, but that existing law cracked down on “unscrupulous people” who were approaching property owners after something as simple as a thunderstorm to seek insurance claims for alleged damage, even if there might not have been any.
Montanari faces Cross at the ballot box on Nov. 5, when voters will find out whether his ideas will be put into motion if he’s elected.
Until then, he’s a storm victim the same as anyone else impacted by Helene and Milton.
Montanari has already had an adjuster to his home. And work is underway to get it back in shape. While construction is underway he’ll be staying temporarily with family. Longer term, he said he may need to consider renting an apartment.
And he’ll rebuild, right along with residents he’s trying to help from the dais and, if all goes to his plan, from the halls of Tallahassee.
