Bay County Disaster Services

Category 5 Hurricane Michael made landfall in southeastern Bay County on October 10, 2018, the strongest storm to ever strike the Florida Panhandle and the first Category 5 to strike the contiguous United States since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Volkert provided subject matter experts in support of Bay County through a subconsultant agreement to assess damages, provide damage repair management and inspection services, coordinate with the state and FEMA, and provide team management leadership.

Volkert provided a FEMA Category C/D lead, an assistant project manager, and a deployed team to assist Bay County in its disaster recovery efforts. Volkert was responsible for compiling a Category C (roads and bridges) and D (water control facilities) list and the county’s overall damage inventory (DI) list, which totaled $70 million and $661 million respectively. Volkert then worked to develop damage assessment reports that FEMA would ultimately use and accept as their site inspection reports.

 Following the development of the county’s DI list, the assistant project manager was reassigned to serve as the site inspection lead for the team. In this position, Volkert worked with FEMA staff on all site inspections and ensured the team’s damage assessment reports were provided to FEMA staff in a timely manner for their use during site inspections.

Volkert also supplied QA/QC inspection staff to provide project management oversight and to document the contracted repairs to ten of the county’s most high-profile structures in need of immediate repairs. Those structures included: the county jail, government center, courthouse, juvenile justice courthouse, juvenile justice annex, library, tax office, state attorney / public defender office, health department, and dental clinic. These facilities had initial emergency repair costs totaling approximately $10 million, and required roof, exterior, and interior building repairs.