The once sun-drenched community of a few dozen Gulf-side pastel homes in the small community of Dekle Beach, Fla., were largely reduced to rubble after Hurricane Helene’s triple-digit wind speeds and rising waters arrived on Thursday and tore through the area overnight.
Residents were returning on Friday morning to survey the damage and process the shock of their changed reality.
Laurie Lilliott and Leslie High walked down the main street leading to the community, clutching one another as they stepped over wreckage.
“That’s my house in the middle of the road,” Ms. Lilliott cried out. “My bed! I’m looking at my bed.”
Ms. High wept.
Dekle Beach, a small community of less than 200 people where Ms. Lilliott’s family has lived since the 1940s, was decimated by Helene. The eye of the storm passed by the coastal areas near the beach community. It is part of the town of Keaton Beach, where about 12,000 people live southeast of Tallahassee.
It was not clear yet how many of the several dozen homes, which in many cases had been elevated more than 10 feet off the ground, had been destroyed, but the remains of numerous houses were strewed along the ocean’s edge.
Ms. Lilliott’s home was torn apart. She sifted through its remains, picking out her son’s Legos and her daughter’s mattress. Down the road, her husband, Hugh Lilliott, asked if anyone recognized a wooden porch swing that was tangled up on someone’s roof.
Ms. High’s home withstood the storm, although its stairs and balconies had not. It was standing, but inaccessible.
“We’ll be fine,” her husband, James High, said to her.
“Yeah, but look at our people!” she said, crying.
Ms. High, who is a teacher at the local high school in the nearby city of Perry, had helped retrieve a neighbor’s family photos, which had been scattered across the neighborhood.
Her husband had built their house in 2021. It was raised high and reinforced with rebar, brick and metal. It held against the wind, he said, but the water took out part of the exterior. Some older homes could not resist Helene’s onslaught.
A powerful surge of waters estimated to reach as high as 20 feet brought down houses and threw them against others, creating a domino effect. The debris along the shore mixed with water, sand and grass.
The larger town of Keaton Beach suffered catastrophic damage as well, worse than the so-called “Great Storm” of 1993 — “The Storm of the Century” — whose large waves, spray and hail caused widespread damage in the Gulf region.
The fuller picture of Helene’s impact is not yet known, but for the people of this area, it was devastating.
“Not 20 homes are left,” said Jared Hunt, who owned the local gas station and lives on Dekle Beach.
His gas station was smashed to bits and the pieces were thrown across the road.
Wiping his brow and picking up a baseball cap out of the water, Mr. Hunt found a vestige of his sense of humor. “Want a hat?” he said. “I can give you a great discount.”
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