ST. PETE BEACH, Fla.—The Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners announced that they asked the federal government to merge Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton into a single disaster, and they expect that request to be granted shortly.
The announcement was made by Board Chair Kathleen Peters as she spoke alongside President Joe Biden in St. Pete Beach during his visit on Oct. 13. Peters explained why the consolidation request would help local recovery efforts.
“Can you imagine if we had to separate our debris?” she said. “‘This is Helene debris and this is Milton debris.’ There’s just no possible way that we would be able to do that effectively and efficiently.”
Hurricane Milton hit Florida’s Gulf Coast less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene dispensed a record-setting storm surge that led to unprecedented flooding.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order initiating round-the-clock cleanup efforts ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival and deploying the Florida National Guard, the Florida Department of Transportation, and other state agencies to supplement local and county officials in their work. But not all streets were addressed in time.
While Helene was primarily a storm surge event, Hurricane Milton brought severe winds and caused its own levels of devastation, mixing its own debris with that left over from Helene.
“Merging the two storms into one disaster will help expedite a lot of red tape to make this much quicker, our recovery,” Peters said. “So I’m looking forward to that announcement. That will happen.”
“That is not the norm in these storms, to be able to get 100 percent debris reimbursement for 90 days,” the governor said. “So take advantage.”
At the state level, DeSantis and Kevin Guthrie, executive director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, have waived all statutes centered around debris removal.
“I can direct, permit debris management sites, hours on trucking, driver hours, waived lengths and measures, weights and measures,” Guthrie said on Oct. 12. “It’s a full-court press; 24/7, the next 90 days, let’s go get it and get after it.”
In the meantime, though, Guthrie told Floridians who may have been impacted by two or more of the storms to hit the state to keep the storms separate when applying to FEMA.
“When you file your application, you talk about Debby and Debby only,” he said on Oct. 13. “You talk about Helene and Helene only. You talk about Milton and Milton only. If you start to transfer them over and you talk about one application that references another storm, it’s going to automatically kick you out.
“Those are bureaucrats. You can’t help them, all right, but you can help yourself. You can help yourself by keeping it simple. Just talk about one storm at a time.”
Peters’s office and FEMA didn’t respond by publication time to requests for more information on the possibility of the disaster merger and the logistics behind it.
