DADE CITY – Residents who attended a town hall meeting Oct. 24 were told by Pasco County officials that recovery from Hurricane Milton is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.
Several Pasco County government officials and a representative from FEMA presided over the town hall at the Historic Pasco County Courthouse.
Several people attending the meeting said they believed the development of new homes and businesses in Pasco County over the past few years is what caused flooding to occur.
County Administrator Mike Carballa countered by saying the flooding caused by Hurricane Milton on Oct. 9 was likely to be considered a 500-year event that was unprecedented in Pasco County.
He also estimated that more than a billion dollars of damage has occurred in Pasco County because of the high winds and massive amounts of rain that fell on both sides of the county. He added that estimate is likely to increase as insurance companies and FEMA continue assessing the damages that occurred.
Of the more than 9,000 building inspections done by the county, 6,000 were declared as being “majorly damaged structures” and 500 were declared as total losses, according to J.P. Murphy, the county’s director of building construction services.
County officials announced that a new community developed in Holiday, known as Project Hope, would provide temporary housing to 100 people who have been displaced by Hurricane Milton.
There are 25 trailers on the property on Grand Boulevard that can each house two people along with 50 single-person pallet homes. Pasco County purchased the two-acre site in July with the intention of using it for a temporary low barrier homeless shelter.
There were more than 5,800 people in shelters after Milton hit, according to Cathy Pearson, assistant county administrator for public services. The county partnered with Catholic Charities to get Project Hope up and running according to Pearson.
Shelter is also still available at the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus in Wesley Chapel and at the Fasano Regional Hurricane Shelter in Hudson, according to county officials.
Currently four people with special needs are staying at the Fasano Shelter, said Christina Louv-Pickle of the Florida Department of Health Pasco County. They are likely to be there on a long time basis, she added. Meanwhile, numerous other people are staying at the part of that shelter that is overseen by Pasco County, she said.
The FEMA representative told attendees that the agency would help provide temporary shelter in hotels for people who qualified because they had been displaced from their homes. They were told to call 800-621-3362 to request assistance.
It wasn’t possible to determine when the flooding in communities such as Dade City and Zephyrhills would recede, according to Andrew Fossa, the county’s emergency management director.
That’s because the Withlacoochee River has reached its highest flood level in years because of the 21 inches of rain the Lacoochee area received in less than four hours, according to Fossa.
In addition, Dade City received 18 inches of rain in a little under four hours while Zephyrhills received 15-18 inches of rain.
“That is historic rain in that short amount of time,” Fossa said.
It’s estimated that 1.4 million yards of debris would have to be removed as the result of Hurricane Milton, according to Kevin Pliska, the county’s solid waste director.
PliskaHe said on Oct. 24 that more than 186,000 cubic yards of debris had already been removed from throughout the county.
People whose homes were flooded were urged to remove debris from them as soon as possible and place it where the county could pick it up. They were also told to remove up to four inches of drywall above the level where the floodwater was in their homes to help prevent mold from developing.
They were also told the county was going to soon have a place on its webpage where people could report they had debris needing to be removed along with posting their location.
And it was announced that volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were going to be helping Hurricane Milton victims to remove drywall from their homes along with providing other assistance.
Carballa said toward the end of the meeting that the county was working as fast as it could. He emphasized that the damage caused by Hurricane Milton “is a recovery that will take months, if not years, for us to really fully overcome.”
