Florida island residents promise to stay if there is a storm
The Creekside Church of Christ tells the story of flood-displaced communities in Florida: a tragedy unfolded to rescue people and feed their neighbours
VALRICO, Florida — As the car pulled up, the few volunteers of Creekside Church of Christ moved quickly in the burning Florida sun, pulling water, hamburger meat and cookies out of the trunk and into the shade of three tents.
Three days before, Hurricane Milton hit the town of Valrico, Lithia and other communities on the west coast of Florida, bringing with it damaging winds and widespread power outages.
After the immediate threat of Milton subsided, another emerged: Major flooding from a nearby waterway turned neighborhoods into rivers, forcing dozens to evacuate their homes. Water reaching up to their chest is reported by some people.
That is why the Creekside members gathered Saturday to give food and drinks to their neighbours as they struggled with water in their homes.
“It came in so fast and so hard that there was nothing that any of us could do. We already knew it was coming, so we got the basics that we could out. But it was just too fast,” she said.
Source: ‘There is no home:’ Floridians find helping hands after floods
Thomas Street is still flooded, but the Alafia River is going to get worse during next week’s floods, NPR explains
The street in Thomas was flooded by the Alafia River. The waterway reached a major flood stage on Friday after cresting at 24.34 feet.
NPR spoke with other residents who claimed the area has never flooded this bad before. Emergency crews helped 500 residents and 100 pets get out of the floods.
Emergency crews and residents still relied on kayaks and boats to get to the flood zones despite some of the water having been out for a while. The flooding from the Alafia River is expected to continue in the major or moderate flood stage through early next week.
She was tearing up when she said there was no home. “The guy that lives behind me lives in a house that’s between nine and 12 feet high, and he had two feet of water in his house. mine’s higher than that. Mine only sits three feet above ground.”
She found that others in the community have shown up, too. She got a grill from one business and was given space to parking her car on higher ground when the first hit.
Preparing for the Future: A New Look at Hurricane Milton Long Boat Key Florida Island Residents Proposal to Stay [Come hurricane or high water, Florida island residents promise to stay]
It’s a stressful and emotionally exhausting experience, but she said, “This was, what, a 1-in-100-year storm. So I guess I got another 100 years. She said she would be dead by that time.
Austin is thinking about the future too. She wants to better prepare herself after her experience, by building her house with hurricane-proof material, and by having an emergency kit in case of future storms.
There are memories here. And there’s memories for future generations that we want to build here. So it has meaning. It is a structure, but it is not. She said that she and her husband are preparing for the possibility that it could become ours someday.
Because of that, Rendel and her husband are already saving up and making plans to one day own the home. It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to fortify a home with strengthened windows or reinforced concrete.
The Seabaughs’ Homes During a Hurricane: What Will They Do if Theirs Is Not There? The Case of the Longboat Key Islands, Florida,
“I think as much as you want to stick to that idea [to stay here], financially, there’s some point in time where you have to say, uncle. He said that he just can’t afford it.
Seabaugh’s wife and he are realistic about what that may take. It will probably be another three months before they can move back into their cottage after fixing up Helene’s and Milton’s damage. They’ve submitted insurance claims to make repairs, but do wonder what might happen if their home is completely wiped out in a future storm.
He gestured to his daughter, who was also present, that they’re fortunate to eventually have grandchildren. “I want my kids and their kids to be able to enjoy it. Hopefully, God willing, that it’s still here.”
When he and his wife first bought the property in 2016, they were visited by the family members of the original builder of the home. It was emotional to see how moved that family was and how many memories they had of the place, Seabaugh said tearing up at the memory.
“When I first came back into my place, I just got emotional because I was so overwhelmed. I realized after a while that I did not need to look at this. This is paradise here’,” she said. “This made it through two hurricanes. The foundation is not in tatters. I most definitely will stay and rebuild. And most of the owners feel the same way.”
Her home was not damaged by wind damage fromMilton, but it was destroyed by the first hurricanes in her life and she is no longer living there.
Just like the Seabaughs, Austin had finished removing ruined flooring and furniture to avoid mold when Milton was forecast to hit. She ran to a hotel during the storm.
For nearly two days, because the entrances to their community remained closed after the storm, they wondered: Was their beloved home of eight years still standing or washed away to the sea?
The state’s barrier islands, of which Longboat Key is a part, normally avoid the worst of hurricanes. Not this time according to the forecasts. The island towns of Florida are susceptible to the storm surge.
The islands were placed under a mandatory evacuation order and residents like the Seabaughs, who sheltered with their daughter in Venice during the storm, feared the worst would happen.
Seabaugh said that they got very lucky. “So clearly, we didn’t get the kind of surge that they were anticipating and just came back to two beautiful cottages.”
NPR asked the residents of Longboat Key whether it would be worth the cost for them to live there for the foreseeable future.
Residents that spoke to NPR about what they love about the community cited the kind and tight-knit town and called Longboat Key “paradise” and well worth the gamble of future storms.