Florida Construction News staff writer
The extent of damage from Hurricane Helene is being revealed as states across the Southeast focus on repairs to critical infrastructure.
Major highways remain closed between Tennessee and North Carolina, where floodwaters have washed away bridges, landslides have blocked key roadways and floodwaters have piled debris on roads.
Gov. Ron DeSantis visited beach communities in Pinellas County on Wednesday.
He highlighted emergency repairs that continue in various communities, including Gulf Boulevard in Pinellas County where Florida Department of Transportation crews have removed 50,000 cubic yards of sand that can be used in the future for beach renewal projects.
“This is a lot of damage here, but I’ll tell you people are making progress,” DeSantis said.
The Florida Gulf Coast chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors is urging local governments to help streamline the recovery and rebuilding process via waived permit fees for essential repairs, private inspections to alleviate backlogs, expanded access to online permitting and creation of a pre-approved contractor list.
Chapter President and CEO Steve Cona III said the main impact in Tampa, about 100 miles from the center of the hurricane, was damaging storm surge, more than he has seen in 50 years of residence there.
“The major impact, I think, is going to be how we rebuild and what are we going to put into effect that’s going to help with storm surge,” he said. “What we’re going to do is make sure that people are at least a little more prepared.”
In an address Sept. 30, President Joe Biden said emergency declarations were approved for Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama, while disaster declarations were approved for North Carolina, Florida and South Carolina, enabling federal funding for debris removal and similar work, as well as providing assistance directly to individuals.
More than 3,600 people from the U.S. Dept. of Defense, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Guard have also been deployed to help.
Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris visited south-eastern US states on Wednesday, as the death toll from the storm climbed to 180.
Biden flew by helicopter over North and South Carolina to view the scale of the devastation.
“It’s not just a catastrophic storm, it’s historic; a history-making storm for the entire Southeast and Appalachia,” Biden said. “Damage from the hurricane stretches across at least 10 states, winds over 100 miles per hour. In some places storm surges up to 15 ft and record flooding.”
At least 50,000 personnel from 31 states and the District of Columbia and Canada are responding to power outages in the South, a White House press release says, while the Corps is moving generators and additional power generation assets to the hardest hit areas in the Carolinas.
FEMA is also working with the Federal Communications Commission to deploy emergency mobile communications assets, according to the release, with U.S. Coast Guard personnel working on response efforts via post-storm assessments to support reopening of affected ports. The U.S. Dept. of Energy is deploying across the region to monitor power, fuel and supply chain interruptions.