CLEARWATER, Fla. — Pinellas County launched a new tool this week to help residents with storm recovery.
It's an online map that lets people in unincorporated parts of the county see their substantial damage letters as soon as they're ready, without waiting for them to arrive in the mail.
"As of today, we've actually filed over 2,200 letters, and the balance of that is roughly 3,000, but we're very confident that we will have this exercise completed before the year's end," said Pinellas County Director of Building Development Review Services Kevin McAndrew.
The online substantial damage assessment tool can be accessed through a website and includes a map of the county. Homes that have had letters generated are marked with dots — green for not substantially damaged, red for substantially damaged.
People can zoom in on their neighborhoods or enter their address to see if a letter has been completed for their home. If it has, they can view it right on the site.
One of the areas covered in mostly green dots is Feather Sound. Workers were at Chuck Swain's home on Spoonbill Lane Friday evening, making repairs after he said Hurricane Helene left five inches of water inside.
"These are all my new cabinets," Swain said, gesturing to boxed up cabinets and appliances in his garage that are waiting to be installed.
Swain said he remodeled his home just five years ago. Now, he's making changes again out of necessity.
"I'm like, 'Oh, my God, there's water in my house,'" he said of returning home following the storm. "We've lived here for 23 years, never had a single drop of water in the house."
It's a situation Swain said many of his neighbors faced, as well. He said that by the time he was ready to get permits for repairs early last month, he was still waiting on a substantial damage letter. In many cases, the letters are a necessary part of the permit process.
"I didn't get a letter, so I kind of took things in my own hands, went to the county," he said. "I wasn't leaving there until I got permits. So, I worked with the county, and they essentially said, 'No, you're not substantial damage. Here is your documentation.'"
He said a tool that would make getting those letters easier is a good thing.
"Oh, I was very stressed out by that, because why can't I just start fixing my house? You know, everyone knows we got water," Swain said.
McAndrew said the county also adopted policies and procedures in early November to help move the permitting process along.
"To give a good example of that, we were confident, and this was coordinated with FEMA, that for properties that had an inundation of less than 12 inches of water, that we would be able to intake those permits and process those through what's called substantial improvement processing. To date, we've processed over 1,500 permits post-Milton," McAndrew said.
Pinellas also started a new text alert system to let residents know about opportunities to tap into government funds for help with rebuilding or elevating their homes.
Residents can text "RECOVER" to 888777 to get information about any upcoming programs. According to the county, the state expects more than $400 million to be made available.
While programs can take months or years to go into full effect, the county's Hurricane Home Repair Program and Elevate Florida are expected to begin accepting applications soon. Updates will also be available on the county's website.