PORT ORANGE, Fla. – City leaders are alerting 400 Port Orange mobile homeowners that they need to make repairs, or the city and residents could be ousted from getting help from FEMA in the future.
Those 400 residents live in four “Special Flood Hazard” areas in the city. After Hurricane Milton last month, the city determined their manufactured homes were “substantially damaged,” meaning the cost to repair is more than 50% of the structure’s market value.
That determination also means the home no longer meets the requirements for FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program.
“When you have extensive damage of that sort, what FEMA is trying to do is avoid repetitive claims. Two things: FEMA doesn’t want taxpayers on the hook for repetitive claims if they can avoid it, and the second thing is we don’t want people going through this more often,” said Mayor Don Burnette.
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Burnette said the city is sending letters to these homeowners that break down what’s wrong with the property and the improvements needed. He said if the owners don’t make the repairs, then the city and its residents may not be able to get disaster relief from FEMA or purchase flood insurance policies in the future.
“Whether it be repairs or modifications, it might be raising the property, it might be replacement of some of these mobile homes but there will be fema grants available to help with a lot of that,” said Burnette.
If the owner chooses not to, they have a few appeal options like hiring a private appraiser if they think the market value assessment is too low, replacing the home with a new, compliant manufactured home, or hiring a surveyor to confirm the home meets flood-resistant standards.
The homeowner will have to pay out of pocket for any of those options.
“The way these homes are built all of the air conditioning and heating ducts are underneath, they fill up with water so that has to be replaced plus whatever items are on the ground,” said resident James Small.
Small said his property flooded during Hurricane Ian in 2022 and again in Milton last month.
He said he got one of these letters to make improvements after Ian and thinks he may get another.
“One of the difficult things that the city requires or would like you to do is to raise your home up to the current zoning requirement which is about three and a half feet higher than what our home is here,” he said.
FEMA offers two grant programs to help pay for the improvements: the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) and the Flood Mitigation Assistance. Residents interested in getting more information on these programs can reach out to the city by emailing SDinfo@port-orange.org .
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