Pasco County residents talk with local officials and FEMA

HUDSON, Fla. — Picking up the pieces from Hurricanes Helene and Milton can be an overwhelming task.

Monday, people in Pasco County got the chance to talk with local officials and FEMA representatives about what comes next at a town hall-style meeting.

“It’s exhausting. I think everybody I speak to is just at their emotional – you know. So, it’s exhausting,” Hudson resident Iris Orlando said of what the past three weeks have been like.

“The ground level houses – ugh. It’s terrible. You see people’s lives are so affected,” said Bruce Markey, another attendee at the meeting.

The packed meeting at Hudson Regional Library was meant to make the path to recovery easier to navigate. Representatives with FEMA, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and more were on hand to answer questions. They covered everything from displacement and rental assistance to when payments from approved claims could be expected.

Markey showed Spectrum News photos of the water line on his garage post-Helene, which was more than halfway up the height of the door. Still, he said he’s in a stilt house and didn’t suffer as much damage as some of his neighbors. He said he came to the meeting on behalf of those still busy cleaning out their homes.

“Try to perhaps be a little bit of a liaison for them and have some good information. There’s been a lot of – I’ve noticed with social media – there’s a lot of bad information out there,” Markey said.

Orlando had 12 inches of water throughout her home after Helene.

“I applied for FEMA assistance on October the first, and I haven’t heard anything as far as an inspection,” she said.

A FEMA representative said during the meeting there are 700 agency inspectors in Florida, but they’re behind on their work due to the huge number of registrations – an expected 1.2 million from Milton alone.

Orlando said what would really be a weight lifted is if the piles of debris in her neighborhood – and countless others – were removed. Debris is something that was brought up at the meeting, as well, with one speaker saying, and others agreeing, that they’re frustrated piles haven’t been removed from their neighborhoods. Pasco commissioners say this is something the county has been working on since two days after Helene.

“The magnitude of debris that’s out there is greater than anything we’ve ever had,” said Pasco Board of County Commissioners Chair Ron Oakley.

“We are trying to get the same waiver that we were able to get during Irma that allowed us to go out and hire more contractors and waive the 60-day federal contract requirement,” said BOCC Vice Chair Kathryn Starkey.

Starkey said county representatives and members of Pasco’s federal delegation spoke about that with the White House Monday. She and Oakley said debris clean-up will take several weeks.