On the verge of the 2026 hurricane season emergency management workers from Florida and well beyond are in Palm Beach County this week for the annual Governor's Hurricane Conference. Attendees got to hear some first-hand experience from Lee County.

It’s human nature for people chased from their homes by a hurricane to want to return quickly and if needed, to start making repairs.

But this can spell trouble when people start work without permits and the blessing of their local governments.

Such was the case in Lee and the federal government caught wind of it and took action.

FEMA notified Lee County government and all of Lee municipalities except Sanibel Island and Fort Myers that they could be kicked off the National Flood Insurance Program because of unpermitted work that was done after Hurricane Ian.

The flood insurance program provides steep discounts to those with federal flood insurance policies.

Glen Salyer, the assistant county manager in Lee County, cautioned attendees at the conference in Palm Beach County about the perils of not having enough workers to monitor that homes are not being re-built without permits.

“And I will tell you, from a Lee County perspective, we battled this," he said. "It was a serious fight we had because we thought we were doing everything right."

He cautioned of the difficult work of not only having to monitor but also to document the re-building of entire communities to avoid trouble with the federal government.

"It's very difficult for you as a local government to police that when you're talking about thousands of residences," he said. "And again, you can activate all of your pre positioned emergency contracts that you have in the world, there's still not enough personnel to go around."

WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.