'The hurricane everyone forgot': North Florida politicians upset about aid gap after Michael

The bills and anxiety continue to pile up after Hurricane Michael.

The Category 4 storm blazed a 90-mile path of destruction 60-miles wide when it blew across 10 Florida counties in October. It was the strongest storm to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Camille in 1969 and caused nearly $5 billion in damages to villages, cities and farms.

Four months later, North Florida politicians in Tallahassee and Congress are not satisfied with government’s response to the natural disaster that devastated a remote rural region from Port. St. Joe on the coast to Malone at the Georgia state line.

“We’re on the verge of people being very disappointed,” said Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, about hurricane relief money in a discussion of the Florida Legislature’s spring session, which starts March 5.

One way to help:Make double the difference for those who need hurricane relief | Our opinion

The storm destroyed farmers' crops. This year’s cotton, peanuts and a generation of timber were lost in the most powerful wind the U.S. has seen since Andrew in 1992.

The number of homeless children in Bay County schools alone have quadrupled. The cash strapped rural counties which have been losing jobs and people for more than a decade have holes to plug in the roofs of schools and hospitals, roads to repair, and sewage systems to replace.

“Michael is the hurricane everyone forgot,” said Congressman Neal Dunn, R-Panama City, about the federal government’s response to the Panhandle’s plight.

Only a dent in debris pickup

Dunn said he is “very upset” with Congress, which is unlikely to provide any more money for aid and assistance this fiscal year. He brandishes a litany of statistics to illustrate the extent of the damage. For instance, he relays while walking the halls of Chiles High School in Tallahassee, the debris picked up just at Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City is large enough to fill the Capitol dome 16.5 times.

Officials say in the 50 counties hit by Hurricane Irma in 2017, workers removed 1.7 million cubic yards of debris. More than 25 million cubic yards has been collected so far in Bay County alone.

“Nobody has ever seen this much debris. We have more debris from Hurricane Michael than Irma by a factor of 200 times,” said Dunn. “It is the most debris ever caused by a storm in the history of the country and that hasn’t penetrated, sunk in yet in Washington.”

More:Months after Michael, help hasn't come for a historic black neighborhood in Port St. Joe

The numbers stagger officials. Florida has already spent or committed $2 billion on Michael, most of it to pick up after the pines and oak trees Michael stripped, pulled out of the ground and knocked down.

After billions of dollars spent and four months of work, officials think they may not even be halfway through the mess.

“As soon as they pick up the stuff off the road, they bring another load to the roadside,” said Montford. “At first it was limbs and branches, now they’re pulling out those huge stumps and putting them on the road. We’ve only put a dent in it.”

Disaster competition

In Washington, Hurricane Michael relief is in competition with recovery efforts from Hurricane Florence, which drenched the East Coast with record rain and the California wildfires, which destroyed more than 150,000 acres.

Dunn and, Rep. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, whose district includes Gadsden, a hurricane impacted county, have formed an informal disaster caucus to lobby for more aid, along with the Congressional delegations from California and North Carolina.

“This is much, much, much longer than historically the federal government has ever waited to respond to an emergency,” Dunn told the Tallahassee Democrat Friday. “The message I take to Washington is these people are counting on you and you are letting them down.”

There’s also a bipartisan push in Tallahassee among Panhandle Republican and Democratic legislators for the state to step up and provide the money to continue the cleanup and to rebuild the infrastructure for electrical, broadband and transportation networks.

Despite a Legislature dominated by a small-government/less-spending mindset, Rep. Loranne Ausley, D-Tallahassee, is optimistic the group will be able to persuade lawmakers to open the state’s checkbook to help the fishing, farming and logging communities devastated by the storm.

“It’s a difficult but not an impossible challenge,” said Ausley. “We are dealing with unbelievable devastation.”

The remoteness and damage to communication networks in the more rural counties delay the cleanup and collection of data.

“Our telecom went down and stayed down,” said Dunn about the challenges in communicating the extent of the damage to the rest of the country.

Montford fears as time goes by Hurricane Michael fades farther and farther into the background. He thinks the 2019 session is critical to the recovery effort and wants the state to reach into its nearly $4 billion cash reserves to help with the cleanup.

But like in Washington, the relief effort has competition.

“We have to look at where our reserves are because a lot of money went out the door very quickly after that storm and the same after Irma,” said Sen. President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton,who placed a priority on having enough money in the state’s savings account (reserves) to maintain a good bond rating.

“I do want to be clear that we have aggressively spent money on Hurricane Michael,” said Galvano.

Galvano pledged to work with Montford and Republican Sens. George Gainer and Doug Broxson to accommodate the hurricane-affected counties, but he adds there are budget constraints.

“We are always constrained by budget decisions,” observed Ausley. “This is just a matter of priorities and we’ve got to advocate to make sure these communities are made whole. The devastation is like no other.”

'All gone'

Late Thursday afternoon after dissecting an omnibus education proposal, Montford’s mind raced back to Hurricane Michael and the damage it did to the area where he was born and raised.

 “Timber is gone. Timber is all gone. It’s a big part of agriculture here” said Montford, a Blountstown native. The Calhoun County seat is smack dab in the middle of the hurricane devastated region.

Timber losses are estimated at $2 billion.

“If you go over there and look, honest to goodness, it looks like a bomb went off,” said Montford.

“I own some property over there and if I didn’t have two gates on the property I would not have known where I was,” said Montford.

Writer James Call can be contacted at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow on Twitter @CallTallahassee