Parts of Florida face long recovery process from double-storm devastation

Five days after Hurricane Milton’s eye came ashore on Siesta Key, Jim Muszynski was still juggling clean-up and filing insurance claims.

“The cost is unbelievable,” Muszynski said, referring to the skyrocketing homeowners insurance costs in Florida.

Without power and with slower internet connections, filing claims hasn’t been easy for Muszynski and his neighbors, who live in Palm Island which is located within the small Siesta Key community.

Residents in Siesta Key are now part of a small fraternity of communities hit twice by powerful storms, first Hurricane Helene with its high storm surge followed by the strong winds Hurricane Milton brought less than a week ago.

“Our lower level is not considered a liveable space so we are going to have to pay out of our pocket for the majority of it,” said Muszynski, who like many Floridians is starting to navigate the claims process and running into surprises along the way.

Muszynski, like many Floridians, believes homeowners insurance rates should be lower because it has become too expensive to insure homes in a state that for decades has attracted northerners because of lower living costs.

An hour north of Siesta Key, the damage is worse along St. Petersburg Beach, a long skinny narrow barrier island.

“This is something this town hasn’t seen in over a hundred years,” St. Petersburg Beach Mayor Adrian Petrila said.

Petrila spent some time showing NBC6 the kind of damage two back-to-back storms can leave behind.

“You don’t expect a house to cave in like that from water,” Petrila said of one grey home that sat across from Woodys, an outdoor seafood eatery which Helene’s storm left in shambles.

“I mean it’s incredible,” Petrila said. “We had 7, 8 feet of storm surge came in. Just took everything out…the first time you had high water, the second time you had 90-100 miles an hour winds."

The mayor didn’t shy away from saying recovery will be slow and long.

“We are looking at 80 to 90 percent of the homes on the island had some kind of water intrusion,” he said. “So we’re talking 3,000 to 4,000 homes just here in this one island.”

When asked if the insurance industry is ready to take on this double-storm devastation, Mark Friendlander said they’re ready to respond.

Friedlander works for the Insurance Information Institute, a non-profit and non-partisan research and education organization focused on helping consumers gain a better understanding of the industry.

“The Florida insurance industry in our opinion is in the best financial position it’s been in many years,” Friedlander said, arguing legislative reforms which addressed legal system abuse and claim fraud have improved the financial standing of insurance companies.

In 2024, nine private insurance companies have entered the Florida marketplace, which Friedlander cited as a positive sign.