SIESTA KEY, Florida (Reuters) – Chris Fiore is expected to receive a shipment of new household appliances and furniture, replacing items that were flooded by Hurricane Helene a few weeks ago.
However, residents of Siesta Key, the Florida barrier island town where Hurricane Milton made landfall this week, are using brooms to push muck and seawater out of their ground-floor condos, the dream homes they bought just four years ago.
“There’s no way I’m pulling a bet,” Fiore said Friday, pointing to the waterline where the sea this week was two feet (60 cm) over the wall. “I doubled over, thinking about windows and hurricane doors, thinking about how to keep this water out.”
This sentiment was echoed by several Siesta Key residents who spoke to Reuters on Friday. Residents outnumbered cleanup workers and people handing out cards advertising roofing and other construction services after two major hurricanes in two weeks.
Everyone felt down but no one lost, despite the threat of stronger typhoons in the future.
“Paradise is still paradise, despite this mess,” said Pat Hurst, who along with her husband Bill have lived on Siesta Key since 2011 and have been visiting for more than two decades.
“That said, cleaning up from one hurricane while trying to prepare for another is stressful.”
While those who live outside of the hurricane-prone zone may wonder why its residents choose to stay, it’s easy to see the appeal of Siesta Key, despite the hurricane. The place is the song Jimmy Buffett lives. A mixture of low-slung houses and three-story condos painted in pleasant pastels, and downtown is lined with attractive restaurants and bars.
After Milton, fine white beach sand covers the road a few blocks inland. Houses were set on fire, every household item imaginable destroyed by Helene piled up in the street. Coconuts are blown off the trees and thrown away.
Boats that used to stay in the canal were thrown ashore. Dumpsters were full of Helene’s cleaning were topped by Milton’s debris.
Milton, the fifth-strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, rapidly strengthened from a Category 1 storm to a maximum Category 5 at sea in less than 24 hours, the latest example of a trend of storms getting stronger, faster, due to climate change.
Milton made landfall as a Category 3. At least 17 people died as a result of Milton, according to the media.
Asked by reporters about the discussion about not allowing people to rebuild, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Friday “the reality is that people work all their lives to live in a wonderful environment, and they have the right to make decisions with the same property. seems appropriate.”
“It’s not the government’s role to prohibit or force them to dispose of or use their property in a way they don’t think is in their best interest,” DeSantis said.
Vulnerable to hurricanes
Florida has led the nation in population growth since 2021 despite its low topography that makes it vulnerable to hurricanes and sea level rise.
Florida ZIP codes account for 78 of the nation’s 80 most at-risk areas, according to Weather Source, an environmental risk consultancy. Residents paid an average of $4,060 for property insurance in 2023, nearly $1,000 more than the rest of the state.
Sherry Tom, 49, convinced her husband and three daughters to give up winter in Pittsburgh and move to Siesta Key in 2021.
“This place is all my heart,” she said. “But I’ll admit it – I’m worried about living in fear that this will happen again. But if we can, we’ll stay.”
Tom says they have to tear down what’s left of the house and build it from scratch. He was determined to stay.
Marko Radosavljevic, 54, owns one of the original houses built by Siesta Key’s first developer, Frank Archibald. Coral is green, built with pecky pine wood, and is known for its water resistance. Water and wind are still causing damage over the past two weeks.
As he works to clear debris from the house he’s owned since 2017, Radosavljevic said he doesn’t mind leaving a place “with a special island atmosphere.”
“I don’t want to be evicted,” said Radosavljevic, referring to the storm and the drive to put hotels in old houses like his.
(This story has been refiled to correct the spelling of Jimmy Buffett’s last name in paragraph 8)
