Treasure Island in 'recovery mode' one year after Hurricane Helene

TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. - As Monica Pepe stood in front of her condo in the La Costa Brava complex in Treasure Island, she got emotional.

"I can usually talk about this," Pepe said.

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Perhaps the gravity of the past year, though, and the anniversary of the reason why it has been so heavy are truly weighing on Pepe.

"Couch surfing, staying with friends, family members, finding some place to live, the expense of assessments," she said. "We're still paying mortgage assessments, special assessments. I now have another place to live, but I'm paying assessments on that place, paying for storage."

The backstory:

Several residents haven’t moved back into the complex. No one is back in the first floor units, not since Hurricane Helene. At least two feet of water flooded most of the complex, including her mom’s unit on the first floor.

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Hurricane force winds from Hurricane Milton less than two weeks later ripped off part of Pepe’s roof on the top floor.

"It has been really hard. It’s just really hard. I just want to be home," Pepe said.

She’s not alone.

"All of a sudden, everything changed for everyone on the island," Treasure Island Mayor John Doctor said.

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Sand dunes looked like snowdrifts. Some were 15 feet tall. Treasure Island’s Fire Chief Trip Barrs said every single structure on the island had water in it, ranging from two feet to six feet.

Dig deeper:

Doctor said they had to make decisions on repairs to damaged city facilities by Helene’s anniversary – Friday – FEMA’s line in the sand. They’re working with their insurance company and FEMA.

"We haven't gotten as much as we had hoped to get, especially since we had lost a police station, a fire station, a public works facility, a clubhouse down in one of the parks," he said. "I think all in all, we're going to rebound very quickly. We have a great business sense and our residents are beginning to return home, and I think that we'll get there, and we'll get there quickly."

The city commission approved the location for a new public safety facility earlier this year, next to City Hall. It will house the fire and police stations, but it will be a couple of years before it’s built. Both agencies have been operating out of trailers in City Hall’s parking lot since Helene.  

City officials are applying for grants to help pay for the new facility, and for infrastructure projects.

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"We have fire and police working out of trailers, and that is difficult coming from a law enforcement family," Senator Ashley Moody said Wednesday, visiting Treasure Island. "As you know, my husband is a law enforcement officer. It is difficult work anyway and trying to work out of a trailer as you're stepping out every day to put yourself between chaos and order and crime and safety. You want to have a place you can go back to a home a home base, so to speak, that's stable and safe and secure, and trailers can't be a long-term solution. We are committed to helping this county," she said.

"We've been through a lot," Barrs said. "This was devastating, back-to-back hurricanes. We're in recovery mode, and we had to set the expectation. This is a years-long process."

"A lot of our community buildings were damaged, our recreation, our public works facilities. We need to get concentrating and working and funding the rebuilding of those facilities, so that residents and businesses can rebuild themselves. We have to have the infrastructure done before we come back to a vibrant community that you all know us to be," Barrs said at Senator Moody’s press conference on Wednesday.

By the numbers:

As of September 15, city officials said they’ve issued 3,443 permits. They’ve received 4,120 applications, but some of those are incomplete, have been voided or are waiting for applicant corrections. 

According to Pinellas County officials, Helene damaged 3,195, and more than 2,000 of them were considered to have major damage.  

"Permitting, it was a tough one for us from the employee's standpoint and the resident's standpoint. You know, we tried to work as quickly as possible. I think that the commission, the one thing we've learned about the permits is that we should have brought in more help earlier and kept them around longer," Doctor said. 

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City officials have issued nearly 400 demolition permits.

What they're saying:

"It’s going to change the island forever. A lot of these properties were single-story properties on slabs, and that's not allowed to do new construction that way. So, you're going to see a lot more raised buildings, you know, three stories. I think that if the storms hadn't hit, you'd have seen that, but it would have been very gradual, small numbers each year, but now there's actually several hundred homes that are going to need to be rebuilt," Doctor said.

Doctor said a lot of that rebuilding is being done by developers. He said it’s hard to regulate something like that, because Florida has some of the strongest property rights in the country.

"The corporations and the developers, they're out then and about, and they started very early. They're building the three-story homes I've talked about. They're the ones that are building them. They don't want to flood the market, I'm sure, by putting too many up, but over the course of the next five years, you'll start to see it pretty much build up and build out in some ways," Doctor said.

Local perspective:

Some businesses have reopened on the island, others, Doctor said, are rebuilding or chose to leave the city altogether. While some residents have returned home, some homes look virtually untouched, especially in Sunset Beach, where the storm surge’s scars are still very raw.

"Sunset Beach took a beating. It is some of the lowest land in Treasure Island, and sand that was as high as the windows in the homes. It was very, like I said, I use the word eerie, because it really was," Doctor said.

"But, I do see that people are starting to open up more than they have. They probably started opening up maybe five, six months after the storms, and we're all happy to see that. A sense of normalcy is something that we want to see, and we want to be back to our vibrant community, and we are hoping that that is quicker than later," Doctor said.

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As for Pepe and her neighbors, she said the complex has hit rebuilding roadblocks.

"We had a timetable. It slipped a little bit for a variety of reasons. We had to let go our first restoration company. We're still dealing with the aftermath of them wanting money for work that didn't get done. So, our board is dealing with that. You know, our second floor owners are moving back, which is great. So, we have a lot of owners that came right back as soon as the water and the electric came back on. So, we do have owners that are here," Pepe said.

She said more neighbors will be able to move back in the next couple of weeks. She’s hopeful she’ll be back home by the end of the year. Then, though, she’ll have to renovate the inside, like replacing the bathroom, the kitchen, doors and more.

"If I can get in my place by May, I'd be happy, you know, so it depends on where you are in the complex and how far along your unit is. Everybody has a different timetable," she said.

"There's still a lot of work to be done, but there has been an enormous amount of work already finished," Pepe said.

She said the complex has gotten closer during the past year, looking out for each other and helping each other, as noted by the "La Costa Brava Strong" signs throughout the property.

"Everybody came together really to help each other when this happened. And it's just kind of a representation of how we came together as a community, and that we're going to make it," Pepe said.