More hurricane damage raises questions about insurance reform, recovery
Joe and Carla Italiano flew down to Siesta Key from their permanent home in Ontario, Canada, after Hurricane Milton, fearing the worst − but hoping for better − for the famous beach destination that has been family’s home away from home for more than 30 years.
But on Friday, just over a week after Hurricane Milton’s landfall on the island, mountains of powdery sand leftover from two powerful hurricanes in the past month still sat on Siesta Key’s famous beaches, with tons yet to clear. Piles of debris as tall as pickup trucks sat on roadsides in front of small old-Florida inns and multi-million-dollar homes.
Some waterfront bars and restaurants had announced happily to regulars that they were open, and crews were hard at work. But Tiki bars still lacked thatched roofs, beaches and boat docks were still closed, concrete walls lining Midnight Pass still lay crumbled, and a sense of hurricane fatigue was still in the air.
Huge piles of sand line Turtle Beach on Siesta Key, more than a week after Hurricane Milton made landfall on the island. Milton’s storm surge deposited vast amounts of sand across the key.
The Italianos, who lost a car at their Siesta Key home when their garage flooded, wanted their friends in Florida to know they believed everything would be fine.
“It doesn’t look good now,” Joe Italiano said. “But we are all gonna come back − business and residents − regardless.”
Some wonder, however, whether Siesta Key and similarly affected communities in Southwest Florida will come back the same after the lashing wrought by flooding rain, storm surges and high winds this hurricane season, as well as with higher insurance premiums affecting homeowners and businesses alike.
In hurricane seasons past, house sales and inventory in damaged cities like Naples dropped for a year or 18 months after storms, according to Brian Tressider, sales manager of William Raveis Real Estate on Siesta Key. Part of that, he said, is that owners needed time to repair and renovate their properties.
Then, prices rebounded. New owners were willing to pay as much − or more − for vacation and retirement homes. “We’re hoping that same thing happens again this year,” he said.
The Siesta Key Beach Resort & Suites sustained damage from Hurricane Milton when it struck Siesta Key more than a week ago. Cleanup on the popular beach destination continues.
But Tressider also said hurricanes Helene and Milton were a wake-up call for Siesta Key, which has avoided a lot of devastation for decades. Some residents skated by so many years without any storm damage, they felt comfortable self-insuring their properties.
In the meantime, insurance premiums for those who did carry policies tripled or quadrupled, and the last two hurricanes caused more damage that existing insurance companies budgeted for, Tressider said.
After several large insurers pulled out of the state or scaled back, the industry has tightened dramatically in Florida and the Legislature is under pressure to enact more insurance reforms to prevent it from collapsing, he said.
Mounds of debris from Hurricane Milton line the roads on Siesta Key as residents and businesses clean up from the storm that hit more than a week ago.
A resident of Siesta Key for 20 years, Tresidder said Milton caused a storm surge of six feet on Siesta Key, a little less than the seven feet caused by Hurricane Helene two weeks before. The storm surge flooded his own home and caused a different, more fierce kind of damage, knocking boats off boat lifts, he said.
“I think it’s going to have an effect,” he said of the more severe weather and insurance crisis. “Insurance is on everyone’s mind.”
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Siesta Key clean-up underway for season; insurance questions loom
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