It has been almost two full years since hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated Anna Maria Island.
And the three island cities are still trying to recover from the storms — at least financially.
With only a couple of months left to go until fiscal 2026-27 begins on Oct. 1, all three cities are pursuing reimbursement from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency for storm-related recovery expenses.
Expenses eligible for FEMA reimbursement include the costs of collecting, sorting and hauling waste and debris from the storms, restoring impacted facilities and mitigating hazards, as well as administrative expenditures for managing the recovery process.
The reimbursement process requires municipalities to foot the initial bill for those expenditures and provide extensive documentation in funding requests to FEMA.
FEMA can take 1-3 years to process reimbursement claims, but a claimant’s compliance with the agency’s requirements can impact the processing timeline or approval of a funding request.
So far, each island city has submitted reimbursement claims and has received some level of funding from FEMA, including:
- $6,401,000 in reimbursements requested by Anna Maria, which has received $1,500,000;
- $2,546,263 in total reimbursements requested by Bradenton Beach, which has received $2,066,041;
- $5,578,966.88 in total reimbursement claims by Holmes Beach, which has received $4,133,966.88.
While Bradenton Beach and Holmes Beach have received more than 70% of the reimbursement funding requested from FEMA, Anna Maria has received less than a quarter of its requests.
Following the 2024 storms, the city, under former Mayor Dan Murphy’s leadership, was lauded by residents for hiring a slate of debris haulers to quickly remove overloaded curbside debris.
The city finished hauling household and landscaping debris in October 2024, before the other two island cities, but its approach may have resulted in slower reimbursement processing.
Mayor Mark Short discussed the pros and cons of the city’s approach during a July 16 budget workshop.
He said the city’s debris cleanup process was 2-4 weeks ahead of the other island cities, but it lacked pre-established competitive bids for debris hauling, monitoring and process management.
Additionally, Short said the municipality did not take enough photo-evidence of pre- and post-storm conditions, obtain truck certification data for haulers, or differentiate between residential and commercial debris hauling, among other issues.
Most of the city’s unfulfilled reimbursements are tied to debris-related costs.
According to Short, the city has received $759,000 in reimbursement for $3,140,000 on debris activities, while $1.7 million in requests have been in FEMA’s queue for more than 260 days. It remains uncertain whether they will be fulfilled.
“We’ve given what we’ve given them, and they have not come back to us,” he said. “Our big gap is related to the debris.”
To ensure a more effective approach to future disasters, last fall, the city hired Colorado-based AC Disaster Consulting. The company has since updated the city’s emergency management plan and provided documentation guidelines to streamline the reimbursement process.
Short said it may take longer to complete the debris removal process following future disasters, but the process would go “significantly quicker” since the city would be more compliant with FEMA requirements.
He wrote in a July 17 email to The Islander that $1,746,000 of the requested funds were set to be distributed by the state in the “very near term.”
In the meantime, the city has about $1 million in remaining unencumbered reserves, according to Short. That is a far cry from the nearly $4 million in reserves it had before the 2024 hurricanes.
On the other hand, Holmes Beach received criticism from some residents for its slower approach to debris removal following the 2024 storms, as well as its use of City Field as a debris management site — which was dubbed “Mt. Titsworth” in reference to Mayor Judy Titsworth.
Kim Charron, the city’s coordinator for emergency operations, told The Islander July 24 that the municipality followed FEMA requirements by the book to ensure getting as much reimbursement funding as possible.
That included maintaining a debris management site permit for City Field, use of pre-contracted vendors for debris hauling and monitoring, as well as documenting each truckload of debris.
Both Charron and code compliance supervisor JT Thomas said they felt vindicated by the city’s success in securing reimbursement funding.
“Honestly, the city took a lot of grief because it took a little while, but we followed FEMA’s process to the T,” Charron said. “While it may have looked like we were dragging our heels or doing something very cumbersome, there’s a method to the madness.”
“We got beat up by everybody. … I almost wanted to quit when people attacked us for trying to help our community,” Thomas told The Islander July 23. “But we did it the right way.”
“All we do is to try to make sure we take care of our residents and stakeholders,” he added.
Police Chief John Cosby, leader of the city’s emergency operations team, did not respond to two calls for comment July 24 from The Islander.
