ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. (WFLA) — John Henry felt the brunt of Hurricane Helene’s unprecedented storm surge in St. Pete Beach.

“I live on the first floor of the condo,’ he said. “I had almost 5 feet of water in there so it almost wiped everything out.”

More than two months later, he wants to rebuild but can’t, saying he’s waiting on a permit.

“It’s very frustrating only because the city has never dealt with this before and obviously we haven’t either,” Henry explained. “But there’s just not enough information to keep us up to date to let us know what’s going on.”

So 8 On Your Side went to the city for answers.

“What is delaying the process?” News Channel 8 reporter Nicole Rogers asked.

“One of the delays is getting the substantial damage letters out of processing from the contractor,” St Pete Beach public information officer Marc Portugal explained. “There are about 2,800 letters through data processing or quality control or both, so that’s one of the biggest delays.”

So what does that mean and why is it taking so long?

City leaders said there is a lot of data that goes into this process and a third-party vendor has to pull information from the property appraiser’s website and other sources of public information.

From there, they said, those numbers are fed into FEMA’s substantial damage estimator tool which determines whether there is substantial damage or not.

The city’s latest data shows that out of the 2,965 completed inspections, 2,725 are stuck in the quality control review process.

“So what do you say to the person who just wants to go back into their home?” Rogers asked.

“Explore the minimal repair permit, but if you’re submitting a full permit package, please make sure your full permit package is complete,” Portugal said.