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Hurricane Milton: Pinellas barrier islands recovery
Kailey Tracy reports
TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. - On Monday, crews were setting up Treasure Island Fire Rescue’s new temporary home in City Hall’s parking lot.
The Treasure Island Police Station will be right next door in the portable shelters too, after Hurricane Helene destroyed both the police and fire stations.
"All of the structures took water damage. Every single structure in Treasure Island for Helene," Treasure Island's Fire Chief Trip Barrs said.
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Then came Hurricane Milton.
"Then we got hit with at least 101 mile an hour gusts that were confirmed. So, did a lot of damage," Barrs said. "Our building department is ramping up to start looking at permits, and we've done damage assessments, and we've found a lot. Unfortunately, there are a lot that are compromised."
That includes several units at the La Costa Brava Condo community where officials said there was an unconfirmed tornado during the storm. Ceilings now sit in piles of debris. Roofs were ripped off, and family pictures were wedged between pieces of wood.
Residents there said Helene flooded their homes with four feet of water. Then, Milton came in for the one-two punch.
MORE: Pinellas schools to reopen this week following Hurricane Milton
"We got there right about first light and realized the damage. We were not optimistic about finding anyone surviving in there, and fortunately, they had all evacuated all 28 units that were affected," Barrs said.
According to Barrs, thankfully, they didn’t have to make any rescues and there weren’t any injuries during Milton. He credits that to most people evacuating. Barrs said it will be a long recovery.
"We're just not going to be ready for visitors anytime soon. Probably not for a couple of months," Barrs said. "I don't know of a single hotel that is up and operating. As far as residents go, I want you to know, we feel your pain. We really do, and we're working as hard as we can with our contractors. And we're pushing them to get the debris picked up, to restore the services, to make life as close to normal as we can for you in these in these times."
The boil water notice was lifted on Monday for most of Pinellas County. Gulfport residents and businesses should still boil their water. The water is safe to drink in St. Pete, South Pasadena, Lealman and the southern barrier islands.
READ: Boil water notice lifted for St. Pete, southern barrier islands in Pinellas County
Local officials asked southern barrier island residents to continue to conserve water, though, to limit the amount of wastewater entering the sewer system. This will help prevent sewer overflows as crews work to bring pump stations back online.
They also have to rebuild the electric grid on the barrier islands. Work on that started after Hurricane Helene and was damaged more by Milton. Across the entire county, officials said as of 9:30 a.m. on Monday, 94,000 people were still without power. Duke Energy hopes to get the lights back on for all of Pinellas County by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday.
Pinellas County officials said debris removal is a top priority, but each city has its own storm debris management plan.
"This is a major operation," Barbra Hernandez, the director of Pinellas County Communications, said. "This is not something that’s going to be solved in a week or two. We’re looking at months of storm debris collection."
"It’s a massive operation. There are a lot of meetings that are happening throughout the day. Throughout the week, we bring on more crews as we continue to reprioritize work out of public works and trucks and teams to go out and continue collecting the debris," Hernandez said.
According to Hernandez, there’s one million cubic yards of residential debris just in unincorporated Pinellas County. The county reopened debris drop-off sites on Friday for unincorporated areas of the county only. Those sites include 13600 Icot Boulevard in Clearwater and at the corner of Keystone Road and East Lake Road in East Lake.
Pinellas County will resume collection of residential storm debris in unincorporated areas this week. This week’s areas include Feather Sound, Crystal Beach, unincorporated Tarpon Springs, Baywood Village, unincorporated Gulfport, Harbor Bluffs, Harbor Hills and Eastern Lealman. They’re starting with those areas, because they had the largest amount of storm debris. There will be a second pass for each zone at a date that will be announced.
Local leaders said while it will be a long road to recovery, they’re optimistic.
"We've seen some heartfelt stuff. Residents helping other residents, even though their homes are impacted," Barrs said. "People are Treasure Island strong."
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