Recovery is still unfolding nearly a year after hurricanes Helene and Milton hit the Gulf coast, wrecking local homes, businesses and infrastructure. Community, many say, carried them through the year.
Helene intensified to a Category 4 on Sept. 26, 2024, before making landfall near Perry. While the storm’s center paused more than 120 miles offshore of Anna Maria Island, it sent Gulf waters surging across AMI and inland. A surge measured about 7 feet in some places, flooding many ground-level structures and burying streets.
Then, on Oct. 9, Hurricane Milton hit the area as a major wind event, tearing at rooftops and scattering debris just as people had begun cleaning up.
The double-disaster shifted how many locals think about storm risk. The Islander, as it marks the first anniversary of the storms, is talking with people about their loss and their recovery.
On Sept. 25, 2024, as evening fell to night, the Gulf began to overtake AMI and, in the dark, with power failing, evacuation for those who had decided to wait out the storm became chaotic.
From the second floor of their Bradenton Beach home on Avenue B, Gail and Ed Straight listened in the dark as floodwaters shifted appliances and furniture on the ground level below them.
The nightmare had begun.
For the Straights, who run a wildlife rescue from their home, Helene stripped away decades of work in less than an hour. Nearly three feet of surge forced its way through their home.
“In less than 10 minutes, it was coming through the floor,” Gail Straight recalled.
Most of the animals had been moved, but two giant tortoises remained.
The Straights’ grandson, Bradenton Beach Police Officer Devon Straight, and another officer hoisted the reptiles atop a cage where they safely rode out the storm.
Both of the Straights’ vehicles were ruined, leaving the nonprofit without transportation to deal with the animal rescues that would follow Helene and then Milton.
Gail Straight said volunteers helped keep the rescue functional after the storms, assisting with cleanups and donating so they could carry on.
She said, “I think how nice and generous people have been. How nice they are, you know?”
Meanwhile, in Cortez the night of Helene, tour boat captain Katie Tupin was forced to swim from her home with her family as a surge arrived in the village. The floodwater climbed past four feet, swallowing furniture and fish tanks and taking some pets.
Tupin said that as she was swimming with debris, belongings and animals in the dark, she was brushed by a shark.
She said her family lost nearly everything, including clothing, furniture, appliances and their car. They lived inland for five months while repairs to their home dragged on.
Recovery, she said, came from longtime charter passengers Jim and Diane Reisner, who arrived from Ohio with tools and spent weeks putting her house back together.
“They probably did, like I’d say got 85% of the work to put this house in order,” Tupin said.
What shook her most, Tupin added, was how quickly the storm changed everything.
“Just live your life … be prepared for the storms. … Never underestimate the storm,” Tupin said a year later. “I never thought I would say this, but I’ll evacuate next time.”