Longboat Key waits on insurance, FEMA money from storm cleanup

Hurricane cleanup comes at a cost, and for the town of Longboat Key, that cost was about $7.7 million in 2024 in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton.

A presentation made to the Longboat Key Town Commission on Monday laid out some of those costs as department heads explained where they are in the cleanup process about a year after the Gulf Coast was hit by two named storms within two weeks of each other. The town spent $4.3 million for debris removal, $738,000 for electric panel replacement, $705,475 for parks rehabilitation and $218,000 for vehicle replacements, to name the largest expenses. As repair work continues even a year later, the town is waiting to recoup some of those expenditures through insurance and FEMA claims.

According to town budget documents, the town was forced to draw down $8.2 million from its reserves in the last fiscal year.

“This year was unusual because we had to use much of our reserves and commit so much of our reserves,” Town Manager Howard Tipton said.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused significant financial damage to residents on Longboat Key also, with more than half of the 3,000 residential units experiencing damage and about 775 units experiencing damage that equaled at least 30% of the appraised value of the property. Tipton said town staff put in a massive amount of work to rebuild. In response to Hurricane Milton alone, the town paid $151,000 in overtime to employees.

“I believe the town’s staff has been extraordinary. It’s Herculean, and that’s the only word that really comes to mind,” Tipton said. “If you think about all the damage that we had, all the issues that were related to it from safety and security and public health to building permits, trying to get things cleared up, all the debris we had piled up. It seems like it was a long time ago, but really it was just yesterday.”

Rebuilding those fund balances without raising property taxes is dependent on FEMA and insurance repayments, according to a presentation by the town’s finance department. According to that presentation, $6 million has been requested from FEMA, and those reimbursements are yet to come.

“Any document that’s produced has to go to three different agencies. First it has to go through insurance, then it has to go through FEMA and then finally the state is the other agency that has to review everything,” Smith said. “It’s definitely time-consuming and we continue to, to this day, keep working with FEMA.”

Smith explained that the paperwork involved with FEMA claims is “somewhat staggering” and that it has taken plenty of staff time to submit grants and respond to FEMA requests. 

According to a slide from the meeting, FEMA recently provided new guidance, splitting debris removal and emergency protective measures funding into two separate categories. That new split has not impacted the total amount the town requested as reimbursement for those two categories of costs, $6 million, but may have delayed the time it took to approve and disburse the applied for funds.

According to Smith, the town has received $1.7 million from insurance claims, but none from FEMA. A check they received recently from FEMA was for damage suffered from hurricanes Idalia and Debby. Those caused much less damage in 2023.

The town is battling beach erosion as well and is requesting money from FEMA to fund it. Tens of thousands of cubic yards of sand were collected from Longboat Key roadways, just a tenth of the amount of sand that was swept away from the hurricanes.

Quick work by town staff slightly reduced the hassle of cleaning up debris that blew onto the beach, said public works director Charlie Mopps.

“We had beach rakers that EOC provided that came up and cleaned the beaches twice. Once after Helene and once after Milton. If we didn’t get that job done after Helene, all of that stuff would have ended up in the Bay, which would have been a lot harder to clean up,” Mopps said.

To renourish the white-sand beaches of Longboat Key, the town has requested $19.8 million from FEMA. Town Mayor Ken Schneier said the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand lost in the dual hurricanes would make the town eligible for that funding to help pay for the next round of beach renourishment.

“We lost (629,000) cubic yards. We made a request for reimbursement for (407,300) cubic yards, and that should give us a really good head start into the next replenishment period,” Schneier said.

In the 2026 fiscal year, $3.6 million will be spent to repay a loan for the last round of beach renourishment, according to budget documents.