As the clock ticked closer to Helene’s landfall in Florida’s Big Bend, Michael Bobbitt made a pit stop at his white bungalow in the heart of Cedar Key, a small island community jutting perilously into the Gulf of Mexico.
Rain was falling there on Thursday morning, and the tides were beginning to rise. Mr. Bobbitt’s county, Levy, was already under mandatory evacuation orders.
But he had decided to stay to help the rescue and recovery efforts — whatever they may entail — alongside his friend Joey Larson, who had come up from his ranch in Odessa, a community some 70 miles south, near Tampa, to help with the effort.
Much of the community had evacuated, but there were still about 50 people left in Cedar Key, Mr. Bobbitt estimated. In his yard, a little blue boat called Buckeroo sat ready and waiting to be put to good use, along with a couple of golf carts.
Cedar Key is dotted with signs of past destruction: homes, restaurants and motels that were damaged, destroyed or replaced after Hurricane Idalia pummeled the community in August of last year.
Helene is the third hurricane to hit the Big Bend in 13 months — after Idalia came Hurricane Debby, which brought flooding to Florida last month.
“We fight the Gulf day in, day out,” said Mr. Bobbitt, a novelist and playwright. “But even the most stoic among us are worried to the point of calm. There’s a resignation here, now, that this might be it for us. That everything we’ve worked for could just be gone.”
Glenn Spaulding, 51, said that Idalia flooded his home with a few feet of water last year. Still, he said he planned to wait out Helene in the same spot, which is a bit inland from Cedar Key.
“I’ll ride it out, count the trees that fall,” he said. “It’s Florida.”
Before noon in Cedar Key, the Florida National Guard arrived to get a lay of the land and inform locals of the storm. Rescue operations can be difficult to navigate when it comes to people staying at home, said Capt. John Meacham.
“When the water gets to a certain level, we can’t do anything,” he said, adding that if people haven’t left by now, their mind is made up. “When people stay and get stuck, it’s putting more of a burden on everybody.”
As Mr. Bobbitt and Mr. Larson made their preparations on Thursday morning and discussed the damage wrought by Idalia last year, they worried that the coming storm would be even worse.
“So, the people who are staying here, why can’t we tell them to get out?” Mr. Larson said.
“They won’t,” Mr. Bobbitt said. “They just won’t.”
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