PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — It’s that time of year when Heather Wendt’s family home in Crystal Beach usually turns merry and bright.
“For us, it’s always been a big thing,” she said. “My normal is that I look like a Hallmark movie in my house.”
But this year, it’s a horror movie, too, after Hurricane Helene.
Three months after the home flooded, it’s still gutted and waiting for repair.
In fact, Wendt still doesn’t know if she can repair it. And to make matters worth, Pinellas County has now labeled the home “substantially damaged” in a letter Wendt received weeks ago.
“I called my husband, and I said, ‘We got the substantial damage letter,’" Wendt said. "My husband said that it was a great thing, but I told him it was not a good one."
The letter from Pinellas County said her Crystal Beach home is so damaged that to comply with FEMA’s so-called 50% Rule, she either has to elevate it, demolish it, or relocate it.
Wendt showed up at a Pinellas County Board of County Commission meeting Tuesday to share her frustration — and she wasn’t alone.
“They are screwing people’s lives up,” another Crystal Beach homeowner, John Richter, said of the letters.
They’re mad that the letters sent out offered few specifics or explanations as to why their homes were deemed substantially damaged.
Homeowners are also mad that inspectors didn’t enter their homes before determining they were substantially damaged. According to the county, inspectors measured the high-water line on the outside of homes and entered it into a FEMA calculator to determine whether a home was substantially damaged.
In the Tuesday meeting, the county acknowledged the determinations are not an exact science, and Wendt believes her situation is proof.
She said even though 4 feet of water surrounded the exterior of her home during Helene, only about a foot of flood water entered her home.
“We are appalled that this is going on and that we have to go through this,” Wendt told the commissioners.
Kevin McAndrew, the county’s building and development review services director, said more than a thousand Pinellas County homes in total are on-track to get substantial damage letters in the coming weeks, but that number will go down.
Homeowners can appeal the determinations and, more immediately, request reassessments.
The reassessments will examine homes to be substantially damaged in a more granular fashion. Homeowners will be allowed to submit photos and documentation, and a construction cost estimator, property appraiser, and certified floodplain manager will review the information to determine if the substantial damage determination should be overturned.
“If you get an initial determination of substantial damage, pursue the reassessment,” McAndrew urged.
Wendt is starting that process.
“We’ll fight it as much as we can,” she said.
However, there’s no guarantee she’ll win that fight and be allowed to rebuild.
“You go through the motions of what do I do next?” she said. “I don’t even know where to go with this. I can’t sit here and just demolish this house just because the county said that.”
To learn more about Pinellas County’s reassessment and appeal process, click here.
