STEINHATCHEE — This coastal community of 500-plus people, nestled along a river and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, fought against a Goliath tempest and emerged battered but not beaten.
“We’ll build back,” said Danielle Norwood, 59, owner of the Sea Hag Marina that fronts the Steinhatchee River in the area of Florida’s Big Bend that took on the brunt of Hurricane Helene. “We’re those kind of people.”
The Southeast continues to grapple with the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which caused ferocious winds and historic flooding that has killed at least 43 people as of Saturday morning.
Helene, which weakened into a post-tropical cyclone Friday, reached landfall late Thursday near Perry, Florida, with 140-mph winds. The system was the first known Category 4 storm to hit Florida’s Big Bend region since records began in 1851.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the hard-hit area of Cedar Key on Friday and Florida Sen. Rick Scott is expected to be there Saturday.
The system was weakening Saturday as it meandered over western Kentucky, possibly near the Tennessee border, according to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bob Smerbeck. By Sunday, it will track across the central Appalachians with weak winds and pockets of rain.
In Steinahatchee, its restaurants, dwellings and gas stations and the Sea Hag Marina was pummeled by Hurricane Helene’s nearly 10-foot storm surge and punishing winds.
The flow of water damaged the marina building’s electrical system, which had been restored after Hurricane Idalia shorted the circuitry last year. But Helene spared the docks, which Idalia wrecked to the tune of $1 million last year. Norwood’s riverside home was destroyed, however, and eight of the 24 rental units she owns were flooded, too,
“I think I’m stunned at this point. I can’t release a lot of emotions,” she said Friday.
It was much the same across the town according to Jordon Bowen, commander of a search-and-rescue unit that included the National Guard, the Coast Guard, the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 2 unit.
“It’s destroyed,” Bowen said, indicating an area that’s about the size of 27 football fields. “Not accessible, debris, lots of hazards, downed power lines, houses cut in half.”
‘Laugh, cry, I don’t know what to do’
Lynn Padgett was among those left homeless by Helene’s ferocious wind. From the posts she was viewing on social media, Padgett braced herself to accept that the house she’s called home for 41 of her 48 years would be in dire condition.
The reality was even worse. The house was not only severely damaged, it had been displaced. Helene’s surge of water pushed it off its foundation and relocated it to the edge of a wooded area just down the way.
The Jiffy store she works at in Steinhatchee is flooded out, too, she said. Her husband, 64, just started collecting Social Security and her father, 67, who also lives with them, along with her 18-year-old son, uses a wheelchair.
She was waiting in her car, hoping the water would go down enough so she could get to her house and maybe find Muffin the cat, who had climbed up a tree in fright.
“Laugh, cry, I don’t know what to do,” she said, adding the house was not covered by flood or wind insurance. “We have nothing.”
FULL STORY: “We have nothing”: Damaged home had no insurance coverage. Now what?
‘It will be a changed community’
The havoc Helene wreaked upon McDavid’s Café had its proprietor thinking he might not open his doors again.
The roof was damaged, the screens for the porch dining area were destroyed and four feet of water came in and hit the appliances, according to the café owner, Richard McDavid, 63.
“It’s salt water so it’ll corrode and rust in no time,” McDavid said.
If he rebuilds, it will have to be without the help of insurance. He said he didn’t insure the place because the century-old building is essentially uninsurable. He also lost about $6,000 in spoiled food, he said.
“We’ve got to get in to mop, bleach and sanitize,” he said. “It’s a royal mess.”
The restaurant sign is gone.
This kind of hassle is not why he came to Steinhatchee five years ago, enchanted by its laid-back charm and great fishing, he said.
“It will be a changed community,” McDavid said of the post-Helene Steinhatchee.
But amid the wreckage there were signs of neighborly good will that is the hallmark of small-town America.
‘It’s free for all — take everything’ … ‘Beer, too?’
Late morning Friday, Crystal Mroz opened the door to the convenience store she manages and gasped.
“Holy crap,” she said.
Potato chips, beers, cans of coffee, even sour cream ring cakes had spilled from the shelves of Maddie’s Market, as if someone has lifted the store and shaken it. About an inch of mud coated the floor and much of the merchandise. A dead 3-inch fish, apparently spewed from the river in the storm, lay on the counter.
Mroz made an announcement to the half-dozen dazed hurricane survivors who trailed her inside.
“It’s free for all — take everything,” she announced to the assembled. “Anything and everything. Just be careful walking around, please.”
Angie McKinney, 58, of Steinhatchee, had a question: “Beer, too?”
Mroz repeated: “Anything and everything.”
McKinney said she was still shaken from the events of the previous 12 hours.
“There were a few times I was running into my kitchen,” she said. “The windows and the doors were shaking.”
Rebuild is a familiar refrain in Steinahatchee.
FULL STORY: “It’s free for all — take everything”: Convenience store owner offers up goods from shop
At Roy’s Restaurant, time to rebuild … again
Last year, Hurricane Idalia’s storm surge flooded Roy’s Restaurant to the top of its doors. Owner Linda Wicker then committed herself to restoring the 55-year-old eatery.
She faces the same daunting task again.
On Thursday, exactly 267 days after Wicker, her customers and the town of Steinhatchee celebrated the completion of the post-Idalia end of a comeback, Hurricane Helene knocked the family-owned landmark to the ground.
Wicker said Friday she’s determined that fried mullet, gator bites and coconut shrimp will be served up again on the banks of the Steinhatchee River where diners can glimpse the Gulf of Mexico in the distance.
“I think we need to do that,” Wicker said, noting that she employs more than 30 workers.
FULL STORY: ‘I think we need to do that’: Restaurant owner says post-Helene she will rebuild, again
Pastor and wife rode out storm with church members: ‘The Lord gave me peace’
At the First Baptist Church of Steinhatchee — within sight of what became an angry river — five members of the flock, the pastor and his wife spent the night in prayer and emerged after in thanksgiving.
Four feet of water came into the parsonage where the group was sheltering, so they adjourned to the tan concrete church’s sanctuary.
Brenda Nawlin, 57, Pastor Paul Nawlin’s wife, said it was scary when water started seeping in.
“I’ve been through storms before and this one was the worst,” she said, describing the Helene’s sound as “howling.”
“The Lord gave me peace,” Brenda Nawlin said, of what came over her when the group went to the sanctuary.
FULL STORY: ‘The Lord gave me peace’: Congregants weather Hurricane Helene in Florida church sanctuary
Friday afternoon, a part of the church door was blocked with some piles of plywood and the church yard was full of tree branches and other debris, like a table fan, but the building was appeared largely unscathed.
“He was very gracious and merciful to us,” Brenda Nawlin said.
Perhaps the most inspiring story of perseverance was that of Stan and Jean Ridgeway.
‘It was the big one,’ 87-year-old resident says
The octogenarian couple rode out the storm in their century-old home across from the Steinhatchee River, confident it would be on high enough ground to survive what had been warned would be unsurvivable storm surge.
On Friday, the Ridgeway homestead remained intact and on dry ground. But not unscathed.
Stan Ridgeway, 87, conceded the storm-pushed water came closer than it ever has to their front parlor as it washed over the road in front of them and crested 15 feet from the house. They lost power and running water, too.
The Ridgeways’ boathouse and dock that was directly on the river and snapped off some ancient oak trees in the front yard and a cedar one as well. Helene’s winds also tore off two awnings, one on the east side of the house and another on the west.
“It was the big one,” Stan Ridgeway said of Helene. “I have never seen or read about any storm like this.”
The storm’s roar kept them awake all night. And then the couple awoke to less shade in their front yard. Still, the seat swings were still in place.
On Friday, he sighed in relief and counted his blessings.
Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at ageggis@gannett.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Tiny Steinhatchee battered by Helene, but its folks are resilient
