Less than two weeks ago, Val Stanja was frantically piling furniture and belongings onto her kitchen countertop. Hurricane Helen was making landfall on Florida’s west coast, and she was preparing her ground-floor condo in St. Petersburg, a Tampa Bay city located on a barrier island just a few hundred feet from the Gulf of Mexico.
Stanja, who works as an airline dispatcher, rode out the storm with a friend on the second floor and watched in horror as storm surge flooded surrounding roads. A wall of water several feet deep destroyed nearly everything she owned. Outside, people were pushing cars and boats around like toys. Stanja thought he could save his car by parking it a few miles inland on higher ground, but the storm surge submerged it as well.
Stanja started hearing about another big storm.Stanja started hearing about another big storm. Milton is a tropical cyclone that formed in the Gulf of Mexico. It grew at an incredible rate over the weekend, becoming a Category 5 hurricane in less than a day on Monday. Stanja was already on his way to a friend’s house in Sarasota, an hour south of Tampa, when he learned the storm was headed his way. She turned around and tried to fly to her hometown in Texas. When that didn’t work, on Monday afternoon she got into a car loaned to her by her insurance company and drove to her son’s home in Jacksonville, spending hours stuck in traffic heading north and east.
“I can’t think straight,” she said. “I’m so confused. I haven’t even filed a claim for damage to my house yet.”
Stanja is one of hundreds of thousands of Floridians who are staring down a second major hurricane, even before the damage from Hurricane Helen is even known. The quick response gave Floridians little time to recover, let alone regain footing. Unfinished clean-up of the mess caused by Helen could make the devastation caused by Hurricane Milton even worse, a one-two punch that could have a devastating impact on the state’s ability to recover. .
After Milton exploded in strength and became a Category 5 hurricane, the worst in less than 24 hours, its wind speeds Approximately 180 miles per hour. Meteorologists attribute the rapid intensification to record-high sea surface temperatures. 400-800 times more likely to occur due to climate change. Forecasters say Hurricane Milton is expected to hit the Florida Panhandle with a storm surge up to 12 feet high, dumping up to 15 inches of rain and potentially causing flash flooding. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in more than 50 counties as of Monday, and evacuation orders were issued in several counties. Many people were told to evacuate before Helen just 14 days ago..
Debris from Hurricane Helen remains strewn across the streets of Clearwater, Florida, days before Hurricane Milton. Ayurella Horn-Muller / Grist
“Much of the damage that happened to Helen will be much worse,” said Carlos Martin, director of the Renovation Futures Program at Harvard University’s Joint Housing Research Center.
Helen’s debris could be blown into the air by Hurricane Milton. We have over 300 vehicles in the Tampa Bay area. Broken furniture and other trash were taken to the landfill on Sunday.Meanwhile, lifeguards removed chairs and other items from the beach. Sarasota County, just south of Tampa, said it is a focus.Doing everything possible to remove debris from Hurricane Helen” and fill in the most vulnerable areas, and the county increased landfill fees for people living in unincorporated areas.
However, progress is very slow. The mayor of Clearwater, a city just north of St. Petersburg, said Sunday: 5 percent of debris Clearwater Beach was cleared. Some residents believe the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are not doing enough to remove the debris ahead of the impending storm.
“This is all going to be used as a weapon,” Clearwater resident Monica Spald said, pointing to water-soaked furniture and trash around her. “The debris from all of this is going to hit windows, roofs, cars, people. … It’s going to fly around and destroy everything.”
Spald is the property manager for Coconut Grove, an oceanfront apartment complex that was damaged by storm surge from Hurricane Helen. In the days after the storm, she became sick from being exposed to dirty floodwaters and trash and nearly ended up in the hospital. As Hurricane Milton rapidly approaches, she’s terrified of the debris lining the streets and what the coming storm will mean for the town’s future.
“I don’t know how I’m going to recover,” she says. “Everything on the island will be destroyed.”
Meanwhile, experts are concerned that the two disasters in quick succession will complicate the insurance claims process to fully compensate victims for their financial losses. Anyone who experienced a loss during Helen is supposed to document it before evacuating before Milton so that insurance claims adjusters can distinguish between the damage caused by the two events. Former Florida Deputy Health Commissioner Lisa Miller called the situation “unprecedented.”
“All bets are off,” she added.
Mike Carlson/AP Photo
For many disaster victims, it may not be possible to file a claim this quickly given the rapid sequence of events and the urgency of current evacuation orders. Sarasota County on Monday urged residents to leave immediately. “If you wait, you’ll get stuck in traffic.” Government website warns.
Others, like Stanja, may head to relatives’ homes in safer areas. But because Helen arrived; 500 miles In some inland areas of Florida, you may have to travel further to find suitable accommodations. Some people may need to evacuate to schools and athletic facilities listed by county. directory Compiled by the Florida Department of Emergency Management.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency often intervenes in shelter operations during large-scale emergencies, but its ability to do so may be limited by circumstances. serious labor shortage The state continues to respond to the aftermath of Hurricane Helen, along with fires, floods, landslides and tornadoes in several other states.
Damage from Hurricane Helen could be $200 billion. No one knows where that money will come from.
In the long term, the storm could worsen Florida’s insurance crisis. “People’s insurance premiums are going to go up through the roof,” said Martin of the Renovation Futures Program at Harvard University’s Joint Housing Research Center. The condition is already the most expensive in the country For home insurance, according to a 2024 report from digital insurance agency Insurify. Helen and Milton could also increase their housing costs in other ways. Buildings damaged during Helen may not be able to be repaired after Milton, making it difficult for people to return.
Sarah McTanahan, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit policy research institute, said Florida has yet to recover from the vulnerabilities in its housing stock created by storms such as Idalia, Ian and Michael several years ago.
“In many areas of Florida, multiple events have occurred over the past five to 10 years that have set the timeline for recovery and rehabilitation of existing housing,” she said. “Depending on the path of Hurricane Milton, it could hit our fragile housing stock, leading to the loss of more units and more repair costs.”
As Stanja prepares to ride out Hurricane Milton in Jacksonville, she still doesn’t know what she’ll do after the storm passes. She has just begun the process of filing a flood insurance claim with FEMA, but flooding from Milton could flood both floors of her apartment building. If that happens, I don’t think she can stay here.
“If water were to accumulate on this second floor, the building would probably be demolished,” she said. “Then I’ll go off-island. I love Florida, but I don’t need to be on the beach.”
Jake Bittle and Ayurella Horn-Muller contributed reporting to this article.
