- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Narrator] Coming up right now, residents up and down Florida's Gulf Coast begin recovering from one of the most destructive hurricanes in modern times.

- Everyone's like, what are you gonna do?

Where are you gonna live?

I don't even know yet.

- [Narrator] And the vice presidential candidates from the two major political parties hold their first and only debate.

- I would just add to that, did he lose the 2020 election?

- Tim, I'm focused on the future.

- [Narrator] All this and more next on "Florida This Week."

(inspirational music) - Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Jennifer Griffith is the chair of the Pinellas County Democratic Party.

Trimmel Gomes is a journalist and president of Gomes Media Strategies.

Jeff Brandes is a former state senator, the president of the Florida Policy Project, and a Republican.

And Kimberly Leonard is the politics reporter and author of "The Florida Playbook" for Politico.

Nice to see all of you.

Thank you for doing the program.

Well, Hurricane Helene plowed into Florida more than a week ago as a category four storm with 140 mile an hour winds.

- [Narrator] It landed near Perry in the Big Bend area, but the devastation also tore through Sarasota, Manatee, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Citrus, Hernando, and Levy counties.

From Florida, it smacked into Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee.

More than 200 people have been confirmed dead.

Hundreds more are missing.

Much of the damage was from flooding and storm surge.

Neighborhoods that had previously weathered large storms were for the first time underwater, communities like the Pinellas beaches, St. Armands Key, Davis Islands, neighborhoods near the water in South Tampa and Shore Acres all experienced record flooding.

Residents began the slow and painful process of throwing out flooded furniture, clothing, and personal items such as family photos, cleaning out the mud, and tearing down ruined drywall.

- [Reporter] How are you doing?

(resident sighing) - I'm doing okay.

Like, I haven't stopped to...

I'm doing okay.

It just is weird, but it could've been so much worse.

- [Narrator] 17 counties in Florida were declared part of the federal disaster area.

That federal assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners to recover.

Despite the scale of the disaster, many residents and business owners are vowing to rebuild.

- It's pretty devastating, but there's the two sides like everything in life, right?

So there's the side about this is incredibly devastating and everything might be over and the community spirit and the human spirit that goes, okay, we're gonna do this.

Let's bring it back.

- We will not leave.

And the people around here are resilient and they absolutely pulled together.

- Well, the day before Hurricane Helene struck, there was a vote in Congress on a measure that would continue funding the federal government and provide billions of dollars in extra disaster assistance.

These Florida members of Congress voted against the extra funding for FEMA disaster relief.

Even though many Florida Congress members voted against the disaster assistance, the measure finally did pass.

Jeff, let's start with you.

Was this foreseeable and, you know, is this the new normal that we're expecting to see?

- Florida averages about 1.8 storms a year as far as hurricanes go, but this is by far the largest flooding event that we've seen at least in my lifetime.

Obviously, we had Hurricane Ian a couple of years ago, but this storm was the kind of next level, not so much on the wind side, but on the flood side, obviously devastating for those in Cedar Key in that area.

But honestly, if you're gonna be hit by a category four storm in Florida, the Big Bend area as far as damage wise is probably the best place for Florida to get hit because it will do the least amount of at least wind damage.

But the water damage, the flooding damage is really unlike anything we've seen in at least my lifetime.

And I know a lot of my friends and neighbors are really struggling as we're kind of picking up the pieces.

- You think climate change is involved?

- Listen, I think the climate has always been changing.

I think this storm just as fast as it was going, as large as it was.

I think it really is one of those issues where we've just never seen anything like this.

Florida's had floods before, it's had hurricanes before, obviously, but the water level rise that we've seen, how it hit during high tide, it really is what drove a lot of this flooding damage.

And I think people are gonna be, you know, it's gonna be really six months to a year before we see this transition take place throughout Florida as far as recovery.

- Jennifer, do you think this is a new normal because of climate change?

- It's absolutely the new normal because of climate change.

I broke it down yesterday.

I was just considering these things.

And in 1950 is when they started naming storms.

98 names have been retired in that time.

Since 2000, 48 names have been retired and it will now be 49.

So over 50% of the names have been retired due to the severity of the storms since 2000.

And a third of the amount of time that they've been naming the storms.

This is absolutely the new normal.

I could go down the list.

It is a very long list.

I've lived through many of them and they keep getting worse.

We can't say it's a once in a lifetime storm.

Harvey was a once in a lifetime storm, Katrina was a once in a lifetime storm, this was a once, no, it's not.

It's the new normal.

- So, Kimberly, what's your take on how the governor has approached and dealt with the disaster?

- Well, he definitely has been on the ground communicating quite a lot.

He's been doing events all over the state, both before the hurricane hit and then right before it made landfall at 11:00 PM.

And then, today, he did an event at Anna Maria Island and we're taping on Thursday and he is opting to do that instead of meet with President Joe Biden, who also is landing here in Florida on Thursday.

So he's being very present.

But he also, not only did he, you know, not meet with President Biden, but he also has been drawing a contrast as we've written in "Playbook" for Politico between the state response and the federal response.

So typically, in these times of tragedy, you see more bipartisanship, working together, a show of unity.

In this case, I would say the governor is being pretty vocal at every stop that he's made about where he feels like the state has stepped up in ways that the federal government cannot or has not, including, you know, being able to get vehicles to various areas, RVs so that people can live there who've lost their home.

He has sent helicopters to North Carolina essentially saying tacit leasing that the federal government isn't doing enough there.

So he is being very present, he's communicating a lot, but he also is, I would say, using the opportunity to draw the contrast with the federal government, which is what he does often, even in non-disaster times.

- Trimmel, I wanna ask you about a "60 Minutes" report that was on last Sunday that said that at least one company was underpaying the claims that adjusters had written up after Hurricane Ian.

And I just wondered, what's the feeling in Tallahassee?

Has the insurance crisis in Florida been fixed and is there any talk perhaps of a special session to deal more with the insurance crisis here in Florida?

- It's to be seen, and the insurance crisis is an ongoing issue.

From a personal experience, I transferred to Citizens Property Insurance, which is the insurance company of last resort because my private insurance company was so high, I could not even deal with that 70% increase.

And the depopulation effort occurring right now, October 11th, I am being transferred out of Citizen and back to my company that I essentially ran away from.

Suddenly, they are 70% more affordable.

So this is an ongoing issue.

My issue is not unique.

The state is going through its process of trying to offload a lot of people from Citizens Property Insurance.

The insurance crisis is ongoing.

It needs attention and it's playing out as we speak.

And with this storm right now, we're gonna see how claims go.

- Jeff, a lot of those people that we saw in the video at the start of this segment said that they were gonna rebuild.

Is rebuilding a good idea?

How expensive is it?

What are the drawbacks to rebuilding?

Talk about that for me.

- So, I think, first, the thing to know is this is largely a water event.

Most people's property insurance does not cover flood insurance.

A vast majority of properties are not going to be, that have property insurance, many of these will also have flood insurance if they lived in the coastal areas.

So they're gonna be required by their mortgage carrier, but some of them are not going to have flood insurance as well.

- [Host] And they're gonna have to rely on federal help.

- And they're gonna have to rely on federal help, which is very meager, like five to $7,000 from FEMA grants for many of these people.

But I think it's important to note that this is not going to, I don't think it's a major impact to the rates of Florida policy holders as far as their property insurance rates, but I do think people need to know that they need to have flood insurance if they live in the state.

Nobody in Florida is more than 70 miles away from the coast.

Everybody should be getting flood insurance.

That's what this storm should highlight.

And the big takeaway from this storm should be is that you need to have flood insurance for this storm.

But I think to your question, look, I think it's gonna take time.

It's gonna take time for people to recover from this.

I don't think this is gonna be a major impact on the property insurers of the state of Florida though.

- I wanna ask you about places like Shore Acres.

There are grants around to raise houses up above the floodplain.

- Yeah, absolutely.

That's called the FEMA 50% rule, which basically says if the payout for your home after, you know, as far as your insurance payment, exceeds 50% of the value of the structure on the property, then you have to bring your home up to current floodplain levels.

And that, for many people, will be, you know, 300 to $500,000.

And if you're, you know, if you only got $150,000 in pay amount, well maybe there's some loans and other things that you could take out, but a lot of these people are just gonna choose to sell at that point.

This is the storm that I think is going to transform a lot of these neighborhoods.

We've had floods and a lot of these people have had floods, you know, as recently as this year.

But this is the storm where you've seen three or four-foot water levels on their sides of their home that I think is gonna be the one that kind of breaks their back of many of these people and they finally decide that now is the time to sell or move on.

- Jennifer, the state does have a program to try to encourage people to not build back in dangerous areas.

And they've tried it out in the Florida Keys.

But should people be building back so close to the waterfront and should we encourage them to move a little bit further inland?

- In my personal opinion, in my dreamland, yes, absolutely.

Barrier islands, my daughter is an environmental scientist studying sand migrations.

Sand moves, and by nature, it's going to move.

And historically through time, those islands shifted all the way around every coast and we've tried to make them permanent.

Because we have so much out on these islands, especially in the state of Florida, it's tourism and we're tourism based and our tax base is from tourism.

I don't see it happening, but ideally, yes, for humanity, I do think that we need to stop building on barrier islands and moving further inland.

Absolutely.

- Kimberly, let me ask you about the politics of this.

Earlier this week, "The Washington Post" looked at the counties from here to North Carolina that were most affected by the disaster, and those counties tended to vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Do we have any sense of how this disaster in Florida is gonna affect the political scene, affect the November election?

- Well, all these things become political, right?

Especially if they're responded to in a way that is inadequate, whether, you know, actually inadequate or just cast that way, it becomes a big political message.

We saw former President Donald Trump bring that up on Sunday in a rally.

And then he announced that he was going to Georgia, and essentially, he was saying, well, why is President Joe Biden in Rehoboth at the beach and why is Vice President Harris in California doing fundraisers?

So it all becomes very political and it's supposed to be a way to kind of convince, you know, they're not just saying, oh, they're doing a bad job.

They're trying to say that they're unfit to be president, that they can't be there in times of crisis, et cetera.

The same messaging has been used against Trump by the Harris campaign.

It's been less focused on the response, 'cause obviously he's not in office, but they have been messaging on his positions on climate change and also areas of "Project 2025" that they say could harm, you know, the hurricane response and things like that.

So, it's always, especially when it's this close to an election, it is something that does, you know, become that way.

You know, of course, there are instances where leaders can stand together and show unity, for instance, but that doesn't mean that the fight's over who should lead go away.

- And Trimmel, the day before Helene hit, up in Congress in Washington, there was a vote on whether or not to extend FEMA disaster funding until December 20th.

A lot of Florida members of Congress voted against that.

What's your best take on whether or not, if that vote were to come up today, would we see like 100% of Florida members of Congress vote for FEMA disaster aid?

- We'd hope.

And as just mentioned, like, you know, politics is playing a role as we're getting so close to the election as the President comes into Tallahassee and the Governor is not here to greet and meet.

As mentioned, usually around these disaster times, it's a time of unity.

Everyone comes together for the greater good of everyone involved, but the proximity to the election and how things are playing out and who's trying to get the upper hand in the eyes of the public, we hope politics doesn't go that way.

But sadly, that's the state of affairs that we're in.

If the vote were held today, we hope that they would vote in favor.

That's what's best for all of us, but it's to be seen.

- All right.

Well, before we go to the next topic, we're gonna put up on the screen some ways you can help after the Hurricane Helene disaster.

(upbeat electronic music) Well, the two major party candidates for Vice President met for their only debate on Tuesday.

- [Narrator] Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance had a polite and civil exchange, despite the fact that they have strongly attacked each other on the campaign trail.

Waltz had a hard time explaining why he had previously and wrongly said he was in Tiananmen Square, China during the pro-democracy protest in 1989.

- Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy?

- All I said on this was is I got there that summer and misspoke on this.

So I will just, that's what I've said.

So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest went in.

And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.

- [Narrator] The sharpest moment came near the end when Vance refused to answer a question about whether Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election.

- January 6th was not Facebook ads.

This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen.

And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say.

He is still saying he didn't lose the election.

I would just ask that.

Did he lose the 2020 election?

- Tim, I'm focused on the future.

Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?

- That is a damning non-answer.

- Related to the 2020 election, this week, a federal judge in Washington unsealed the special counsel's court filing, which says Donald Trump knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud before January 6th and resorted to crimes in his failed bid to cling to power.

So, Jennifer, I'm wondering, you know, about the Trump administration and Vance still really not ready to concede the 2020 election.

What's your take on that?

- It sounds like it's still gonna be one of their tactics, one of their strategies, something that they're not gonna admit to because, well, I mean, how many court cases are on the line over this?

You know, admitting that would kind of be admitting defeat.

I don't see it happening.

I don't see them coming around.

I don't see them coming to the point of being honest brokers.

They haven't been thus far.

And I don't see it changing anytime soon.

- Jeff, President Trump says that the results of the 2020 election were fraudulent and he maintains that position.

Really hasn't backed down.

- Look, I think anybody who watched that debate realized JD Vance was right on the policy.

He was leading on the discussion, and really, I think Tim Waltz was kind of out of his league on going against JD Vance in that conversation.

But I think, look, I think the fascinating thing in the conversations I've seen since is that both parties wish everybody would flip the ticket and let the vice presidents lead the ticket on either side.

So I think there's been a really interesting dynamic that's played out here just since this debate where people are getting a lot more focused on the election, they're getting a lot more focused on the policies.

And we're still waiting to see from really from the Democrats what policies they're willing to put forward to, you know, end some of the struggles that Floridians and Americans are seeing today.

- Yeah.

Kimberly, some polls show the race in Florida is tightening up, whether you look at the US Senate race or if you look at the presidential race.

Kamala Harris is getting a little bit closer in Florida to Donald Trump and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is getting a little bit closer to Rick Scott in the US Senate race.

When we talk about issues like the 2020 election, does that have any difference on those uncommitted voters, do you think?

- I don't know that it's so much that, I mean, for Rick Scott especially too, we've seen him so active on the ground in Florida ever since the storm hit.

That's a lot of earned media, you know, to have the candidate there, you know, he's also our senator obviously, but to have him there on the ground showing him helping other people and so forth I just think, in the middle of a crisis like that and in our state, that that's where people are really focused.

And so that makes a huge difference.

I do think there's been a lot of energy for Democrats ever since Vice President Harris rose to the top of the ticket.

I mean, I attended a watch party.

During every debate, I attend a watch party.

I sort of go back and forth between Republicans and Democrats to chart the energy and get a sense of, you know, how people are reacting to the different things that the candidates are saying.

And there was so much more energy when I attended this week with the vice presidential debate, I went to a Democratic watch party, versus in June with the Biden debate where it was very glum and depressing and, you know, there was kind of no way for them to spin it and to talk about that.

So there has been a shift.

I think that probably, it will be more narrow than it would have been, but it's still difficult for me to see Harris winning Florida.

But I could see a narrower margin potentially.

And again, I just, I don't think that the Harris campaign thinks that they will win Florida because otherwise, they would be here.

They would be spending more money here.

You know, there's a lot of electoral votes up for grabs more than some of these other battleground states combined if you were to do well in Florida.

But they're not here on the ground.

And so that to me is the biggest tell.

- Yeah.

Trimmel, I wanna ask you about something that JD Vance said during the debate this week.

He said that he's in support of expelling 20 to 25 million undocumented immigrants.

We know we have a lot of undocumented immigrants in Florida.

How do you think that that plays out here in Florida?

Because we have a wide group of people that have come here without documents of various ethnic groups from various countries.

How do you think that plays out?

- Well, it's to be seen.

As just mentioned, the projections here and a lot of Republican support, it's speaking to an audience despite the population of having more immigrants and those here that would like, you know, you would think.

But the policy and politics of it all, what Vance did on his debate, he presented a lot of his style, which was more measured, calm.

There was a lot of pleasantries going along between both candidates and while still projecting through some of those hard right policy measures.

We won't know until the election day how it all goes down, similar to what we thought going into the President Trump's ascension, where we all thought, like, you know, Hillary was going to get it, at least many of the pundits.

And then there was a big surprise.

So, it's to be seen.

- Jennifer, were you surprised during the debate when Vance said that President Trump had saved the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare?

Because Florida leads the nation in ACA enrollment.

Were you surprised that Vance took that stand?

- Yes, I was very surprised about that.

I was surprised when he talked about his personal family members getting personal or private insurance and he was, all I could think of was, can you go back in time and see how all of this started into 2010 and know where this started and how much work went into this?

Like, what the ACA has opened up.

And I love that they talked about how the Republicans called it Obamacare and we embraced that.

Yeah, we embraced that, absolutely.

It was a massive project.

It was decades, really, in the making and it has been a benefit to our country unlike anything I think we've seen since probably Roosevelt.

- Jeff, we just have 10 seconds.

President Trump didn't really save the ACA, but is the ACA now popular among Republicans?

- I don't think it's specifically popular amongst Republicans.

I think, look, the big challenge that the US faces now is the debt crisis.

And neither party I think is doing enough to talk about how we're going to handle the massive amount of debt with the large Democratic entitlements that we've seen over the last few years.

That's the big challenge that the next president's gonna face.

- Okay.

Well, before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And Jennifer, your other big story of the week.

- Big story of the week is there are potentially 40 polling locations that were damaged in Pinellas County.

So by all means, please go look up votepinellas.gov for the latest information on where to vote and how to vote.

Mail ballots went out on October 1st, so you should be receiving them today or tomorrow, or yesterday.

Just check with the Supervisor of Elections if you haven't gotten it.

And by all means, if you don't get it quickly, just go vote early.

- All right.

Trimmel, your other big story.

- The strike between longshoremen and dock workers that's happening in South Florida and many major reports across the country.

I think this will have implications, not only on the presidential race, but like, you know, more so the supply chain and the US economy.

And it's gonna be a little time before like, you know, we as people feel the impact.

But that is a big issue that's brewing - For sure.

Jeff, you're other big story.

- I think the big story is buy flood insurance.

That and take pictures.

Listen, you know, people are out in the process filing claims right now.

They need to file a homeowner's claim, they need to file a flood claim.

If they've had damage, they need to take pictures and document everything.

That's the big story for me.

- All right.

Kimberly, your other big story.

- For me, I'll really be watching who some of the big name endorsers are gonna be for amendments three and four.

We've had some big names come out lately for and against.

I was surprised, for example, that former representative Donna Shalala came out against Amendment three.

And then I don't know if anyone saw, but Melania Trump, one of her book excerpts released that said she was very pro-abortion rights.

So it kind of sounds like she and her husband might be voting differently on Amendment four.

So I'm very interested to see those big names coming out for or against as well as major donors who are gonna be coming out of the woodwork to support or oppose either one.

- And I have a story of the week.

I'm gonna echo what Jeff said.

According to Scott Maxwell at "The Orlando Sentinel," only one in five Florida homeowners have flood insurance.

And because those numbers are from two years ago, the actual number today may be lower.

Legislature and governor did a smart thing a few years ago.

They required all Citizens insurance customers to also buy flood insurance by 2027.

Those who had no flood insurance right now during Hurricane Helene and who suffered flood losses can seek federal help, putting more of a burden on the national budget.

It's another example of how we might think living in Florida is cheap, but when a disaster comes along, the true cost of living here becomes apparent.

Remember that this coming Monday is the last day to register to vote in November 5th election.

That's it for us.

Thanks to our guest, Jennifer Griffith, Trimmel Gomes, Jeff Brandes and Kimberly Leonard.

And if you have comments about this program, please send them to us at ftwwedu.org.

Thanks.

See you next week.

(bright trumpet music)