WILBUR-BY-THE-SEA, Fla. — After Hurricane Nicole turned their lives upside down, residents of Wilbur-by-the-Sea are turning to county leaders for help. However, Volusia County officials cannot tell residents when they will be able to begin rebuilding their properties.

What You Need To Know

  • County officials said in order for residents to move forward in the rebuilding process the Florida Department of Environmental Protection must sign off on the next steps.

  • This is a problem Wilbur-by-the-Sea residents have been facing for weeks now due to Hurricane Ian

  • Many are hoping to hear something from the state agency so they can try and save what is left

County officials said in order for residents to move forward in the rebuilding process, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection must sign off on the next steps.

“What we are dealing with is as soon as someone is down, they can’t get back up. Plain and simple,” explained Clay Ervin, the director of Growth and Resource Management for Volusia County.

This is a problem Wilbur-by-the-Sea residents have been facing for weeks now, Hurricane Ian rolled through the area and some of the beachfront residents began to lose parts of their property. Then Nicole came and took the rest.

Between the two storms, one of the beachfront residents Ken Meister tried to take action to protect his property. He submitted a request to rebuild his seawall after Ian but the approval from the Department of Environmental Protection didn’t come.

“My home could have been saved. Four weeks ago, my contractor was … the permits were in, the applications were in, the panels were on site,” explained Meister. “The crews were ready to go and wouldn’t let me build the wall.”

Meister added that before Nicole, he contemplated just building the wall without approval and getting fined later but opted to follow the rules. In hindsight, he said he wishes he acted to save his home. Now, he is just hoping to hear something from the state agency so he can try and save what is left.

“We want to hear from the governor that the DEP that is going to order the DEP to make this situation resolved,” added Meister. “We want the governor to say to the DEP let the counties work with their permitting process, they know these locations and locals, and let’s get this situation fixed.”

One of the other issues people are running into is finding the approved sand that they can use to reinforce their property and seawalls.