Using the 20 people that died in Hurricane Ian and the 2 men that died in the Palermo gas leak back in August as his setup, Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers asked members of the Florida Legislature to consider changing the law that allows 3rd party private inspectors.
Allers spoke before the House Natural Resources and Disasters Subcommittee at the request of Representative Adam Botana. Back in 2002 the state of Florida passed Statute 553.791. That law, the result of construction industry lobbying, gives homeowners the option to choose a 3rd party certified inspector. The reason for the law was to help speed up the process. Florida is a growing state with a lot of new homes being built. If a homeowner wanted to pay a little more money to get an inspector to their home quicker, that option was there. The 3rd party inspector does the inspection, makes sure the home is being built according to the plans submitted to the local municipality, and submits the proper paperwork to that municipality in a timely fashion. All the municipalities inspection rules and deadlines are supposed to be followed.
Allers said 3rd party inspectors take the town’s building official out of the equation. “It takes away from our putting eyes on the project. In this case two people came down to their home. They turned their pool heater on, which was put illegally inside their home, and both died, because this wasn’t inspected by our building official.”
Allers asked the committee members to consider, even if it’s only during a state of emergency, that a state certified building official has to lay eyes on every single project. “Although we want to believe that everyone is being honest, in the time of crisis, bad actors do come out.”
Allers also told the committee that the federal government failed Fort Myers Beach. He was specifically talking about the trailer program and thanked the state for stepping in with its own trailer program to help residents on the island. “I think continuing that (state) program for future disasters is very important.
Finally, the Mayor told the committee that the SBA (Small Business Administration) was a huge failure. “We had businesses chomping at the bit trying to figure out how to get back to work and help people, serve people, and get workers back to work. One of our restaurants (La Ola) set up a trailer 10 days after the storm and started offering food to FEMA and USAR teams on his own dime. He had no help from anyone. He is one of the reasons we’ve been kicked out of the National Flood Insurance Program, because he was innovative. He thought outside of the box. He put modulars on trailers and showed through a video that he could get them off the island in less than 4 hours and that still wasn’t good enough. He followed all the rules and we still lost our flood insurance discount, because we made decisions to try to get our residents back, to try to get our economy back. I don’t think that’s fair.”
Allers said the state should be able to look at something to allow the communities to get something in place much quicker. “There’s a lot of process issues. If someone is trying to get help and you have to fill out more paperwork than you do to buy a home, that’s a shame.” Allers said streamlining the process for people to get help is one of the top priorities the state can help with in addition to his concern about 3rd party inspectors.
Allers also told the committee that Fort Myers beach is still waiting on $119 million from FEMA to start projects on the beach that are ready to be done. He called that a broken process when more than 2 years later the town is still waiting for the money to be “obligated.”
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