Navigating the sometimes-muddy waters of FEMA claims

Jonathon Micklitsch has lived in Waterway Estates, or neighboring Shore Acres, for much of his life. Unlike many in Northeast St. Pete, though, he’d never before filed a flood claim.

Until Helene.

As the waters receded Sept. 27 from 7.1 feet of surge, Micklitsch and his wife Karen were left dealing with several inches of water inside their home. Shortly after it opened Sept. 28, he filed his first claim with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA, the government body responsible for natural disaster relief.

The FEMA appraiser arrived promptly at 12 p.m. Thursday afternoon, Oct. 3. His visit was thorough, Micklitsch said, and he expressed that the couple had obviously received damage, and suggested they should hear shortly.

“He seemed to at least feel like, ‘Hey you guys have really been torn up here,’” said Micklitsch. But he added, “‘Hey listen – I just punch in the information; they make the decisions.’”

At 8:57 p.m. that evening, someone did – claim not approved.

“I realize everything is part of a system,” said Micklitsch. “Unfortunately I think it’s a broken system.”

A number of other residents the Catalyst spoke to had similar experiences. Krissi Murray, who took on three feet of water in her Riviera Bay home, reported being refused moving and living costs within hours of her adjuster’s visit. “I did go through this with Idalia, and I thought FEMA was amazing,” she said.

While Murray had been approved for approximately $2,000 in expenses, it had not yet been paid at the time of publication.

Tina Ann Dampf, a partner at Stockham Law Group in Tampa and a specialist on disaster insurance, reported that she and her colleagues heard a chorus of the same. “We are seeing more people get their responses already,” she said. “They are being denied.”

While that may be the case, according to FEMA spokesman Jack Pagano, that does not leave residents out of options.

“Not approved usually means … that [a claimant] may have forgotten something, maybe their Social Security number is wrong, maybe they had a certain type of damage and they don’t have proof of that damage,” he said.

“116,000 applications have been submitted, and only 4% have been disapproved or denied.”

When pressed on citizens who were not approved on different items or whether that 4% represented either full or partial denials, Pagano said FEMA was unable to offer detail on whether individual applicants had had different categories of assistance denied within an application, how many, or for what reasons.

Pagano also encouraged residents with questions to go to the Disaster Recovery Center or one of six pop-up locations in Pinellas County staffed by FEMA, where claims experts could assist residents with appeals. Residents appearing there could get clarification on missing documents, the appeals process, and resources available as they worked to rebuild, he added.

Residents who complete necessary paperwork, like uploading flood insurance approvals or denials, can see money in 2-3 days. “That’s the goal, to quickly get people monetary assistance.”

The Catalyst visited one such site Oct. 4- at Enoch Davis Rec Center, staffed by FEMA personnel. Just a single resident appeared in the 45 minutes this reporter was present.

To Dampf, this lack of clarity and communication has been a major issue for residents looking for immediate assistance on needs like housing – which FEMA, as the underwriter of the National Flood Insurance Program, which covers almost all houses in affected areas, already knows it does not provide.

“The federal government is the one that has the flood policies,” said Dampf. “So they know that there’s not a flood policy issued by them that gives them housing assistance or additional living expenses.”

Further, Dampf noted, “When [residents] are denied, the frustrating thing is that it doesn’t tell them why.”

She noted that while there was an opportunity to click a drop-down in the application, the information provided was often incomplete or unclear, especially for a resident already dealing with a great deal of trauma from clearing out their home and sourcing alternative accommodations.

“They’re not in their home, they don’t have electric … who knows how reliable their internet access is?” Dampf asked. Of her dozens of clients, only two had found time to appeal thus far.

Residents showed us several FEMA documents that did give clear indication at some points why a claim was not approved, and the additional documentation needed, often copies of an insurance settlement or denial. In many cases, however, money paid out under the “miscellaneous” category was either unspecified or unexplained.

A Patrician Point resident, Julie Oescher Johnson, initially received only a few hundred dollars in that category before it increased to $2,660 on Oct. 5, without immediate explanation.

The confusing terminology and changes from the experience from 2023 left a number of residents upset and confused. Elected officials echoed those concerns.

“I will tell you I have spent many, many years working with FEMA on things like flood insurance and the affordability and accessibility of these resources, and I will tell you that the FEMA process is very convoluted and difficult for everyday residents,” noted St. Petersburg City Councilmember Brandi Gabbard, who has a background in real estate.

Both she and State Rep. Lindsay Cross confirmed that they were looking into residents with denied claims, and intended to surface the concerns with FEMA’s process with Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-Tampa), who represents East St. Petersburg.

Castor’s office did not reply to a request for comment.

FEMA’s Pagano encouraged patience with the process, especially with Hurricane Milton bearing down, shutting down local assistance centers at least through Thursday of this week. “I know it’s hard to be patient, but at the end of the day, we’re trying to make the best of a bad situation, he said. “FEMA is there to try to help.”

He added that more staff was coming from outside the area to add to the 58 already in the Tampa Bay region.

“My message for FEMA would be – provide more information,” countered Dampf. “When you’re denying people who already purchased flood insurance, you know they don’t have coverage for the assistance that they have applied for. So you need to give them more information as to why they don’t qualify.”

For residents, it’s a painful and increasingly terrifying waiting game, with uncertainty about what support they can expect, when, and from whom compounding the stress of preparing for yet another storm. Milton is expected to make landfall as a major hurricane near the Tampa Bay area this week, compounding damage suffered by residents and potentially adding thousands more.

“I have a dog and two children,” said Johnson. “Where do I go and live that’s reasonable and theoretically furnished for the eight weeks at a minimum that it takes to fix my house?”