What Is The Going Estimate For Home Repair After Hurricane Michael

Businesses have been slow to reopen since Hurricane Michael, in office because there aren't enough workers. Greg Allen/NPR hide caption

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Greg Allen/NPR

Businesses have been slow to reopen since Hurricane Michael, in part because there aren't plenty workers.

Greg Allen/NPR

A year after Hurricane Michael slammed Florida's panhandle, communities in that location are struggling, and rebuilding is slow. With housing devastated, local governments are being forced to raise property tax rates to pay for high recovery costs, and a astringent housing shortage has caused many, to temporarily leave the area.

A loftier school marching band greeted shoppers and paraded through the store when a Winn-Dixie supermarket reopened recently. Businesses have been ho-hum to reopen since Hurricane Michael, in role because there aren't enough workers.

Philip Griffitts, chairman of the Bay County Commission, says it all stems from a shortage of affordable housing.

"Rents that are available are very high," he says. He cites a newspaper article he saw about a Dairy Queen planning its reopening. "They're having to push information technology back," he says, "simply because they tin can't find the help to open a new Dairy Queen."

In Panama Urban center and surrounding communities, crews are busy replacing roofs and working on new construction. Simply the demand for contractors plus the electricians, plumbers and other building trades far outstrips what'due south available. Griffitts says friends who are contractors accept more work than they can handle. Ane friend he says is a small time custom architect who might practise five to seven projects a year.

"He'southward got 25 on the books," Griffitts says. "I have another friend who might do 100, 125 projects a yr, who at one time had 300 on the books."

When Michael roared through Panama City with winds over 150 miles per hour last October, information technology ravaged public housing and crumbling apartment complexes that made up much of the area'south affordable housing stock. Thousands were left homeless. Many left the expanse. Some moved into trailers and manufactured homes provided by FEMA. On the Bay County fairgrounds, Tasha Crawford is pregnant and has been living in a FEMA mobile dwelling house since March with her boyfriend and five children.

"We have the three sleeping accommodation, two baths, simply it's actually picayune, because it'due south just a single wide," Crawford says. "I'm very thankful for it though."

Crawford says they can stay here until April, and maybe longer if FEMA allows it. She and her swain accept been looking at rental backdrop, but they're expensive: a three bedroom would cost them nearly $2,000 a month.

"Plus you're going to have your water and your lights that you got to pay on top of it," she says. "It'due south stressful right now."

Mark McQueen, the urban center manager in Panama Metropolis, agrees that affordable housing is the surface area's nigh acute demand, only says at that place are signs of progress. Work is underway on several privately owned apartment complexes that were damaged and shut down afterward the storm.

"In fact, between now and February of ... 2022, we're going to see most 85% of that housing stock back in inventory once more," McQueen says.

Rebuilding is as well boring in the community closest to where Hurricane Michael made landfall, Mexico Beach. The storm killed three people there and left more than three-quarters of the homes destroyed or severely damaged.

A year later, many of the buildings that remain are just shells, lacking roofs, windows and walls. The rubble is more often than not gone leaving empty lots behind. In some cases, unabridged blocks are empty. Only here and there, homes are beingness rebuilt.

"We've got over 30 new building permits that have been issued," says Al Cathey, the mayor of Mexico Beach and owner of the local hardware stores. "Things starting to come up out of the footing. New homes, new roofs."

At Cathey's hardware shop, which is nevertheless operating temporarily out of a lumber warehouse, one client is having new keys made. Others are picking upwards lumber, drywall and nails.

Cathey grew upwards in Mexico Beach. It's always been small, with merely one,200 residents earlier the storm. Homes were passed down from one generation to the next he says. Just since Michael, he sees signs that's changing.

"Some of the younger generation may not have the attachment to Mexico Beach that their parents and or grandparents had," Cathey says. "We've had virtually 160 property sales since Michael."

Many of sales are of empty lots, some of them beachfront. But Cathey says land prices are back where they were before the tempest and for every property on the market, there are typically two or iii buyers.

"We're very pleased," he says. "For myself, I'1000 going to lose some good customers, some old-time friends. But we'll brand new ones."

Al Cathey is mayor of Mexico Embankment and the owner of the hardware store, one of the few businesses open in town. Greg Allen/NPR hide caption

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Greg Allen/NPR

Al Cathey is mayor of Mexico Beach and the owner of the hardware shop, one of the few businesses open in town.

Greg Allen/NPR

One concern is maintaining the small-town character as Mexico Beach rebuilds. Cathey says the boondocks has rejected proposals from developers who desire to rezone properties for multi-story condos and apartments.

Across this part of Florida'due south panhandle, housing remains the major challenge. Merely in Panama Urban center, Hurricane Michael exposed another problem that needs attending: its aging infrastructure. Since August, a series of breaks and pump failures have dumped more than 65,000 gallons of sewage into the city's waterways. Trees uprooted in the tempest and convoys of heavy, debris-filled trucks have cracked decades-old sewer pipes. Officials say replacing the organization will take ten years and price at to the lowest degree $200 meg.

And at this point, officials in Panama City and other communities hitting past the storm are struggling only to balance their budgets. In Panama Urban center, Hurricane Michael destroyed or damaged 85% of the structures, substantially reducing their value on the tax rolls.

"Just in the historic downtown surface area that nosotros're in right at present, the aggregate taxable values were reduced past over $18 1000000, but in this little neighborhood nosotros're in right at present," McQueen says.

To compensate for the turn down in values, Panama Urban center raised the property taxation rate. It was an unpopular move, but it was i of several local communities to do so. McQueen says the tax rate should come up downwardly over the next few years as homes are rebuilt and holding values rebound.

He'southward more concerned about another effect of the storm, the area'southward population loss. Officials estimate that 8,000 or 9,000 people — more than 25% of the city'due south residents — left the area. McQueen says that will injure in April when the once-in-a-decade census is conducted.

"The 4-hour ... storm called Hurricane Michael could have a 10-twelvemonth castigating upshot to the recovery of the city of Panama City," the metropolis manager says.

That'due south because the census is used to determine levels of land and federal grants, funding that will be vital equally Panama Urban center and other panhandle communities rebuild.