‘Debris on top of debris’: Local leaders brief legislators on hurricane impacts

A group of people from areas affected by 2024’s hurricanes spoke to the House Natural Resources and Disasters Subcommittee, explaining how storms impacted them.

The House panel heard from LaWanda Pemberton, the County Administrator for Taylor County, Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers, Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi, Cedar Key Mayor Sue Colson, and Pinellas County Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins.

Pemberton noted fiscal constraints were already tight, with an additional half a million dollars expected in ad valorem taxes to be lost.

Debris removal is also an issue, with citizens waiting for “months” for answers on vegetative debris disposal.

Satisfying current code is unaffordable for coastal residents with wrecked homes who need to rebuild, further impacting the tax base.

Allers described impacts from five hurricanes in recent years, but said he expects recovery to continue, with city government to be in a building rather than trailers in the coming months.

“Secondary building inspectors” are a concern for him, and he wants a requirement that state building officials have to “lay eyes on every single project.”

Tapfumaneyi’s county dealt with similarly robust impacts, with two back-to-back storms last year posing the biggest challenge. Milton downgrading to a Category 3 avoided a worst-case scenario, she noted, as it had been forecast as a Category 5 impact.

“We had debris on top of debris,” she said.

Resources, especially regarding haulers, were scarce compared to needs, creating a very “problematic” issue of “price negotiation” that cost “tens of millions of dollars.”

“Different counties were raising their prices to get resources,” she said, along with a “state agency” that doubled the price for haulers and forced the county to match.

She sees price fixing as a solution to the unfettered free market.

“We don’t want to be in competition with each other,” she said.

Cedar Key is the smallest area of those represented in Tuesday’s committee, but arguably faces the biggest challenges given minimal resources and massive needs.

Colson bemoaned the “fourth-highest rate in the nation of sea level rise” in her small community and the need to “prepare for what’s coming.” Ahead of Milton, there was a major fire in the city’s commercial district, creating a “one-two punch” for the hamlet, a “small, tiny island with 700 homes” after 28 homes were destroyed by the storm.

Businesses are struggling to recover, with Small Business Administration loans being insufficient to fund recovery. And the island’s market has been “demolished” on multiple occasions, “the only grocery store for 35 miles.” The library is closed because the elevator is broken.

“I’m almost embarrassed to talk to you about it,” Colson said. “But we need assistance.”

And that assistance hasn’t come for Cedar Key.

From Pinellas, Perkins described the “huge challenge” of multiple hurricanes in a short span, noted the difficulties of underground power during flood events, and described how businesses that were impacted by COVID were driven out finally by storm impacts.

Debris removal was also a challenge in Pinellas, Perkins noted, combined with infrastructure repair. She wants the process to be more “expedient” and more streamlined also.

Local leaders voiced frustration about how slow disbursements were for communities wanting to rebuild, with Allers calling it “pennywise and pound foolish.”

Rep. Kelly Skidmore says she was “incensed” that barriers these people faced were from the “federal and state government” via a “FEMA-Florida limbo.”

She hopes the legislators will help figure it out for them by “the end of the day” with their “brains” and their “clout.”

“I’m devastated that this is something you still have on your plate,” she added.