Eros Bongiovanni lost her Madeira Beach rental home and job during Hurricane Helene. Like thousands across the Tampa Bay area, she waited hours — in line and on hold — while seeking help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

She was turned away twice before FEMA awarded her enough money to put herself and Ruby, her Pomeranian-Yorkie mix, in a Clearwater duplex.

About 5 miles south in St. Pete Beach, Jill Mederos’ home took on three feet of water, yet she was denied FEMA aid. She’s had to dip into her 401k early to pay her mortgage and rent while she waits for local building officials to work through a backlog of permits.

Delays in aid have slowed Madeira Beach’s recovery, casting a pall over island life for locals who miss their tight-knit communities. Last month, Mederos joined a march on City Hall with other fed-up beach residents.

As of mid-December, FEMA shelled out $1.1 billion for Floridians who were victims of hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton, according to an agency spokesperson. It’s about the same amount the agency dispersed across Florida after Ian in 2022, which was the costliest hurricane in state history.

Unlike two years ago, however, much of the damage this time was clustered in Tampa Bay, which bore the brunt of the three storms.

FEMA applications for this season’s storms flooded the agency with more than double the number of requests than those following hurricanes Ian and Idalia, according to agency data. Hillsborough led Florida counties for most individual assistance applications.

Combined, homeowners and renters in Hillsborough and Pinellas received $670 million from FEMA this year.

And yet, as the experiences of Bongiovanni and Mederos illustrate, how federal officials have distributed the record amount of aid varied, leaving those hit the hardest with vastly different perceptions of FEMA.

Much of what the federal agency can accomplish depends on the competency of the state and local governments it seeks to help, officials say.

“When the states and locals do a good job, it makes FEMA look good. And the converse is true,” said Craig Fugate, a former FEMA administrator and former director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management. “States lead. FEMA supports.”

Record relief for Tampa Bay

Bongiovanni, the Madeira Beach woman displaced by Helene, has never been so close to homelessness, she said.

In the weeks after the storm, she drove up and down the beaches, stopping at 10 hotels to ask if they accepted FEMA vouchers. She had no idea how much money she would recoup.

“That experience with FEMA was pretty heartbreaking,” she said. “You feel pretty desperate. There’s sort of this panic when you have lost everything and it’s all hinging on what FEMA decides for you.”

Bongiovanni, 55, received more than $4,500 from the federal agency.

“It feels like it’s every person for themselves, trying to get through these lines and waiting,” she said. “I consider myself lucky for getting what I did.”

Amid a backlog of applications, the agency contended this year with misinformation spreading online. One rumor claimed FEMA was running out of money after spending its funds on migrants. Another, propagated by President-elect Donald Trump, said federal officials had abandoned red states.

In response, the agency created a webpage to debunk false claims.

But the chatter grew louder when FEMA exhausted its funds during Helene — which spurred a cash infusion from Congress after Milton struck — and it was discovered that one Florida staffer directed workers to skip homes with Trump signs.

Three Pinellas residents said they believed they were skipped over for political reasons.

Others on the county’s barrier islands grew frustrated with the agency over rulemaking they say hampers the building permit process. Many residents are still waiting to hear from local building officials tasked with upholding FEMA’s 50% rule, which mandates that a storm-damaged building is torn down if it is deemed “substantially damaged” and if repair costs exceed 50% of the structure’s value. About 1,600 letters have been issued in unincorporated Pinellas County so far.

Cities and counties could risk losing their existing discounts on federal flood insurance if they don’t adhere to the 50% rule and allow rebuilding in flood zones.

Months after the one-two punch, local officials say recovery has been swift, thanks in part to FEMA’s willingness to compromise, but they acknowledge that rigid rules will make rebuilding arduous for others.

What FEMA did right

To state and local officials, FEMA seemed to be a willing and helpful partner.

“We have gotten approvals for everything that we’ve asked for,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said Oct. 7. (Neither his office nor the state’s Division of Emergency Management responded to questions about FEMA’s performance this year).

Pinellas County Commission Chairperson Kathleen Peters said she has been impressed by the federal agency’s cooperation with state and local communities.

In mid-October, Peters wrote a letter to FEMA and President Joe Biden’s administration asking that federal guidelines be loosened in the wake of unprecedented hurricane damage to the Tampa Bay area.

Like DeSantis, she got most of what she requested.

The agency expanded the federal government’s share of debris removal costs, provided temporary shelter assistance and added more disaster recovery centers in Pinellas.

But rules complicated recovery efforts. Take debris removal. FEMA guidelines treat debris removal from commercial properties differently than from homes. If a local government picked up debris and commercial tenants also filed a private insurance claim, the county could be penalized for condo owners and homeowners associations double-dipping into relief funds. That led to misunderstandings.

“The people that lived in condos, townhouses and duplexes didn’t understand why their debris wasn’t getting moved,” Peters said.

Peters went back to FEMA and asked for another workaround. The agency OK’d municipal debris removal for commercial properties as long as residents signed an agreement that waived their reimbursement from insurance companies.

“They really worked with us,” Peters said. “I shouldn’t be frustrated, because it really was above and beyond. What they did to reduce the red tape and make it easier was significant.”

Small towns, big problems

Where FEMA proved flexible on debris removal, there was no budging on the agency’s 50% rule for rebuilding damaged homes, Peters said.

That could change. Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said he was working with federal officials to offer grants and loans to elevate homes. Attorney General Ashley Moody this month asked FEMA to make exceptions for people who can’t afford it. Elevating a home can cost $200,000 or more.

In Gulfport, returning residents to their homes and business will take much longer than people realize, said Mayor Sam Henderson.

Gulfport’s response was faster than Pinellas’ other coastal towns, Henderson said. The town started early on damage assessments and debris removal while other cities waited for state and county help.

Still, about 650 Gulfport homeowners are awaiting letters that tell them if their damages have triggered the 50% rule, Henderson said. It’s left many in limbo who haven’t learned yet whether they can replace drywall and appliances, or will be required by FEMA to knock down the structure and rebuild.

That number is even higher elsewhere in the county, and some barrier island residents have been so disillusioned with beach towns’ sluggishness in rolling out damage reports — mandated as part of FEMA’s 50% rule — that rumors have swirled about some small towns unincorporating, which would leave debris removal and building permitting responsibilities to the county.

“The cities are so small and they don’t have the resources to get things done,” Peters said. “They never imagined the kind of debris they would have to deal with.”

When Angela Murphy and her 14-year-old daughter were displaced from her St. Pete Beach home, she expected repairs would have started by now.

Instead, she’s been waiting on a damage estimate in accordance with the 50% rule.

The town has been so slow to act, Murphy said, she’s considering asking for forgiveness instead of permission.

“What happens if we said, ‘To hell with everybody,’ and we build our house and just start living in it?” Murphy said. ”We own the house. We own the land. FEMA didn’t give us money. Insurance didn’t give us money. What can they actually do?”

If beach town officials look the other way on unpermitted construction, flood insurance rates could spike across the county.

That happened in Lee County after FEMA accused building officials of failing to enforce federal requirements. When the agency temporarily revoked the county’s flood insurance discount following Hurricane Ian, Pinellas floodplain managers called it “a wake-up call.”

Murphy has been living in a Madeira Beach hotel paid for by FEMA since October. She didn’t want that for her daughter and sent her to stay with family in Connecticut. Murphy’s stay ends Jan. 14, then she’ll be applying for FEMA rental assistance.

She swings by her home often. Every time she’s there, Murphy cries and checks for mail from the building permitting office.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen once we get that letter,” she said.

‘States lead’

During this year’s storm season, DeSantis downplayed FEMA’s role in the recovery.

“FEMA is not leading this show,” DeSantis said Oct. 9. “We are leading this show here in the state of Florida.”

That’s how it’s supposed to be, said Fugate, the former FEMA administrator.

The agency relies on state and local governments to know what federal resources to ask for and where to deploy them. Some states, such as Florida and Texas, have experienced officials throughout state and local governments. Others don’t, Fugate said.

Fugate said Florida’s response to this year’s storms seemed typical to past years.

State Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-St. Petersburg, said he was satisfied with FEMA’s response because of the effectiveness of the state’s emergency managers.

“I think their ability to communicate what’s going on on the ground here in the state of Florida to FEMA has helped FEMA respond the way they have,” DiCeglie said.

But some locals say they feel left behind.

After the governor staged a handful of news conferences in Pinellas and used his office to expedite insurance payouts, he seems to have retreated to his office, said Mederos, the St. Pete Beach homeowner.

“Where is DeSantis?” she said. “What happened to him standing up for all of us? He spoke in the beginning about how he was going to get us all back, and then all of a sudden, he’s MIA.”

Mederos is nearly out of time and money. After 12-hour shifts at St. Petersburg’s Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, she comes home and cares for her 87-year-old father. She’s hired a contractor and independent appraiser to prove to FEMA her damages skirt under the 50% rule.

“I basically had to gut my house,” Mederos said. “My house right now is just an empty shell. It’s not livable, obviously.”

FEMA disagreed.

In mid-December, she logged into the agency’s portal to find she had been denied federal aid. Days later, a letter from St. Pete Beach informed her she would need to tear down or elevate her home because damages exceeded 50%.

Her damages were estimated by the city at 50.6%.

“Talk about screwing a homeowner,” she said. “0.6%? Really?”

Mederos would like to see DeSantis step up and bridge the gap left by the feds, she said.

“We’re sitting here waiting for the city of St. Pete Beach to put a rubber stamp on a piece of paper to say, ‘Start building,’” she said. “Stamp these freaking permits and let us go home.”

Times staff writer Shreya Vuttaluru contributed to this report.

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