manaloplay Residents Flee Milton From Beach Towns Still Cleaning Up From Helene
On the barrier islands outside St. Petersburgmanaloplay, Fla., which were utterly crushed by Hurricane Helene’s storm surge two weeks ago, it was hard to tell where storm recovery ends and storm preparation for the approaching Hurricane Milton begins.
Street after street of Pass-a-Grille, a laid-back beach neighborhood in the city of St. Pete Beach, was lined with mountains of debris. The remnants of people’s homes — doors, dressers, mattresses, cookbooks — were heaped about, waiting for pickup. The sand along the water was piled so high that the Gulf of Mexico was hard to see from Gulf Way, the beachfront drag.
On Tuesday morning, dump trucks stacked with stuff drove off the island. Florida National Guard crews worked to clear the piles, though the sheer amount of work left to be done seemed impossible to complete before Milton was forecast to arrive on Wednesday night.
“They’ve been working all night,” said Pam Flynn, a resident of St. Pete Beach who was packing up her apartment and preparing to evacuate with her husband, Larry Flynn.
The couple stayed at the apartment during Hurricane Helene and were surprised by how high the storm surge rose, Mr. Flynn said. Their apartment is on the second floor and was not damaged. But their first-floor neighbors lost almost everything. The Flynns lost both of their cars; their Mazda 6 floated down Pass-a-Grille Way until one of its wheels got stuck in a drain.
The Flynns decided to evacuate this time, fearing that Milton would deliver an even higher storm surge and much stronger winds. They had hoped to wait until Wednesday to get out, but changed their mind on Tuesday morning.
“One of the die-hards said he was leaving,” Ms. Flynn said. “I said, OK, I think we’re the last ones.”
Relatives offered them a place to stay, but they are in Nashville and Chattanooga, Tenn., which seemed too far to drive in jammed storm traffic. So the Flynns plan to head about 20 miles inland and then ride out the storm in their rented minivan, perhaps in a public parking garage.
The couple moved to Pass-a-Grille 14 years ago from Kentucky, seeking warmth and sunshine. They have lived through many storms but had never seen a surge like Helene’s.
“It was like Armageddon,” said Mr. Flynn, 69. “I’ll never underestimate another one.”
Though the Flynns were getting out of town this time, they said they had no plans to leave Pass-a-Grille for good.
Some of their downstairs neighbors, however, have already said they’re not sticking around.
“It’s going to change forevermanaloplay,” Mr. Flynn said of their beachfront community. “We’ve lost our sense of safety. It’s going to be precarious now.”
