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Sarasota News Leader November 2, 2012 "It all should be coming together in the next several weeks," Harriott said. The short-term fix will cost close to $200,000, Tom Maroney, general manager of business operations in the county's Public Works De- partment, told the News Leader on Oct. 30. Earlier that day, Harriott had been optimistic the cost would be about half that much. Still, Harriott conceded, "You can see utilities lay- ing down through that [damaged] area …" Those broken utility lines were adding to the cost, Maroney said. Nonetheless, Harriott told the News Leader, Derr is a company that works with the county on unit-price contracts. "There is a competi- tive nature to some of the pricing we will get." Even given the state of the road, he added, county officials do not take expenditures lightly. As for the cost of the permanent solution: "It will be quite substantial," Harriott said — probably upwards of $1 million. After property owners and residents com- plained about the state of that section of road in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Debby's onslaught of Siesta Key in June, county staff had undertaken work about six weeks ago to stabilize the area using what Harriott called a "soil/cement base" to fill in the voids, with a cap of asphalt laid on top. "But that's all gone," he said on Oct. 30. "Those waves and the surf undercut it." Sand was missing from an area about 3 to 4 feet deep under the asphalt, he added, making Page 49 the area unsafe for driving, though pedestri- ans could maneuver around it. THE FEMA FACTOR One factor that may complicate the timing of the permanent repairs is the need for Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to sign off on what the county wants to do, Har- riott pointed out. Although he had talked with representatives of both FEMA and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Oct. 29, Har- riott said, that was before Hurricane Sandy came ashore in southern New Jersey, wreak- ing billions of dollars in property damage as it moved inland. He acknowledged that agency officials are go- ing to be very busy for the next several weeks dealing with the aftermath of Sandy. Nonetheless, he said, FEMA has a special grant fund for emergency repairs such as those needed on North Beach Road. In such cases, FEMA could be expected to pay 75 per- cent of the total cost, with the county picking up the remaining 25 percent. "We're optimis- tic that FEMA will do a reimbursement," he added. He emailed photos of the damage to the FEMA office in Tampa on Oct. 29, he said. Usually the appropriate state and federal agencies work quickly to help a local govern- ment deal with a situation such as the one on North Beach Road, Harriott pointed out. "There are homes impacted … from an ac- cessibility standpoint," he noted. "None of the agencies want to keep [the road] in that condition."