Move Pinellas mobile park residents to safety | Editorial

Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board, Tampa Bay Times
·3 min read
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Residents of Twin City mobile home park in the Gandy area of Pinellas County are sitting ducks in storm-prone Florida. While Pinellas has ordered residents to elevate their homes, many cannot afford to. Wasting money on repairs is senseless, anyway. And waiting for floodwaters to inevitably drive people out is simply cruel. Pinellas needs to buy these homes, help residents relocate and then address the park’s future.

The county sent letters to residents of 82 Twin City homes in October, requiring that they elevate their homes to nearly 11 feet or leave the frequently flooded mobile home park by the start of hurricane season June 1. But as the Tampa Bay Times’ Jack Prator reported, some residents there have nowhere to go. They don’t have tens of thousands of dollars to elevate a home that’s worth half that amount, and they’re not even sure their homes can be fortified in the first place.

County officials said the notices are meant to keep Pinellas in line with federal flood-plain regulations the county adopted in exchange for participating in the National Flood Insurance Program. But the county has no plans to condemn the homes or to compensate homeowners in Twin City, and it won’t enforce orders for homeowners to leave unless their structures are deemed uninhabitable.

In other words, this is a problem nobody’s fixing and a charade of a government response. Five months after Pinellas’ order, county records show no permits being pulled to elevate structures in Twin City. Are we simply waiting to pick up the pieces after disaster strikes?

Some residents told the Times that living at sea level in the park, which sits near Riviera Bay, with Old Tampa Bay to the east, has become “inhumane,” but many in the low-income community have nowhere to go. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency offers assistance for residents who want to elevate their homes, it is uncommon in Florida; only 274 homes have been elevated through federal grants since 1995, with Pinellas County being home to 60 of them, according to federal data. Even if these residents had the money for repairs, with seas rising, coasts eroding and more hurricanes expected to intensify, how many years would these improvements buy, anyway?

The county should forget this Band-Aid approach. It’s costly, impractical and offers little long-term value. With hurricane season not three months away, and sunny-day flooding more regularly a risk across Florida, it’s time to bring stability to these residents’ lives, reduce the dangers that first responders face and plan more responsibly for a hotter future that’s already at our door.

Pinellas should purchase these properties and help residents relocate. Local, state and federal monies might all play a part, but the chief concern here must be the welfare of these residents. Pinellas can then negotiate with the park’s owners over whether the property continues to operate. At the very least, new residents would be informed upfront about the elevation requirements, allowing potential buyers to budget accordingly.

Communities across Florida will face decisions like these as our warming climate poses ever more risks to lives and property. The realities in this case are simple: The economics of elevating these homes don’t work, residents are stuck and a bold move is required to get our neighbors out of harm’s way. Pinellas doesn’t have the resources to neutralize every environmental threat. No community does. But just because we can’t solve every problem doesn’t mean we shouldn’t solve one.

Editorials are the institutional voice of the Tampa Bay Times. The members of the Editorial Board are Editor of Editorials Graham Brink, Sherri Day, Sebastian Dortch, John Hill, Jim Verhulst and Chairman and CEO Conan Gallaty. Follow @TBTimes_Opinion on Twitter for more opinion news.