"They’re used to doing business on island time, at 20 miles per hour."
Pinellas beach residents commiserate in Facebook groups. They pack tense city meetings, shouting advice and retorts at elected officials. They chortle at song parodies: Treasure Island resident Don Whiting’s “All I Want for Christmas Is My Building Permit” and Carlos Miro’s permit-themed rendition of “Dream On” by Aerosmith.
“We’ve been waiting, waiting for an answer / Since Helene tore our lives apart,” Miro wrote on Facebook. “The city’s slow, oh, it’s like molasses / This bureaucracy, it breaks my heart.”
There’s one goal: securing the city permits they need to rebuild their lives after months of living in half-finished homes with exposed drywall and missing cabinets, in cramped hotel rooms or loaned campers in their front yards. Others wait for service jobs to return at wrecked motels and coffee shops.
Hurricane Helene hit more than 120 days ago. But in the 10 small towns that constitute Pinellas County’s barrier islands, many have learned in just the last few weeks whether they’ll even be able to rebuild their homes.
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