Steinhatchee, a small fishing village along the coast of Florida’s Big Bend, has been here before. Residents are still recovering from Hurricane Idalia, which battered the region more than a year ago.
But this time was worse.
Roy’s, a beloved seafood restaurant good for a celebration or date night, was flattened. Homes were crumpled under the weight of trees, others left sodden by several feet of storm surge. Closer to the ocean, streets were still flooded Friday, and pieces of shredded docks were strewed about.
“It’s overwhelming,” Sarah Merritt, 33, an English teacher who moved permanently to the area a few years ago, said on Friday of the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene. She wiped away tears as she looked at the cottage her mother had planned to retire to, now split in half by the trunk of a toppled tree.
“That was going to be her home,” she said. “But I guess not now.”
Paul Nawlin rode out the storm in Steinhatchee, hunkering down in the church where he is a pastor, unwilling to leave the few seniors who didn’t want to evacuate — or couldn’t.
On Friday, he stood outside his home, in overalls and a neon green shirt that proclaimed “We Remain Indestructible.” The building had visibly shifted to the right.
“It’s gone,” he said. “Gone.”
Outside Roy’s, plates, spoons, a whisk and the top of a cocktail shaker were scattered among the puddles.
Jimmy Hooten, smoking a cigarette, held out his phone to capture the damage.
“I lost my Land Rover,” he called out to a friend passing by.
“Damn,” the man said.
Mr. Hooten shrugged. “I still got a place to live in. My young’uns are alive.”
But, he added, he knew he would leave as soon as his children were grown.
“I want out one day — I’m tired,” Mr. Hooten said. “They wipe us out, you’ve got to start over.”
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