Forgotten Fury Hurricane Helene's Devastation in Florida
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00:00It's easy to get caught up in the spectacle, the wind, the wreckage, the waves, the raw
00:08power of a storm like Hurricane Helene.
00:11But when all we see is destruction, we miss the real story.
00:23The quiet devastation.
00:25The lives turned upside down in an instant.
00:27The ones who don't make the headlines.
00:29I mean, you can see how high the water line was.
00:31It was coming in all sides of my house, all the doors, my poor dog and I were laying in
00:37bed listening to it just pour in.
00:40That's the small picture.
00:41And I was okay with just throwing it out when it was just wet pieces of paper.
00:44Now that I look at it all and think about it and tell a story, it's like, ouch.
00:50I'm going to stop some of you right now.
00:51I know what you're seeing here from Florida after Hurricane Helene makes some of you shrug
00:56the devastation that's hundreds of miles to the north in the Carolinas and Tennessee.
01:00In Florida, the devastation doesn't scream.
01:03It simmers.
01:04It's quieter, easily overlooked by the headlines, but it leaves its scars all the same.
01:10This isn't some twisted competition of who suffered more.
01:13The destruction on St. Pete Beach is just as real and as painful as the wreckage in
01:17the Carolinas.
01:18The storm didn't discriminate.
01:20It didn't care where it hit or who or how it hurt.
01:23One thing we have to remember, pain doesn't have to compete.
01:26Yes, there is catastrophic damage in the mountains of Carolinas and Tennessee, but there were
01:31suffocating floodwaters here in Tampa Bay and the suffering is the same.
01:37Yeah, this home is still standing, but many homes in this neighborhood alone are going
01:42to be torn down because homes like this just can't exist here anymore.
01:48It's not sustainable.
01:49Not after so many storms and so many floods in such a short amount of time.
01:54It's tough to claim 12 dead and 20,000 homes and businesses wrecked in one of the country's
01:58biggest media markets are overlooked, but that just shows you how brutal Helene has
02:02been elsewhere.
02:03Still, I'm here.
02:05This is my home.
02:06And these are some of the stories from the worst storm to hit Tampa Bay in a century.
02:11Hurricane was 100 miles west of us.
02:13I wouldn't have bet a million bucks this storm surge was going to happen.
02:18We get hurricanes, you know, a couple of times a year.
02:21Never thought this, you know, this devastation would happen here, but 604 started coming
02:26up over the wall at 640.
02:29It was probably halfway up my leg in the parking lot and I'm like, oh, and the high tide hadn't
02:36even started.
02:37It was that low tide and the water was coming over the wall.
02:40So 655 I left.
02:44The road was completely covered.
02:47This whole road was completely covered.
02:49There was already a car broke down in the middle of the road because it flooded out.
02:54So I hopped the curb, rode the curb all the way down.
02:57I was probably the second or the last car to get off the island before that surge hit.
03:04So one thing to consider as you see car after car getting towed away from the beaches here
03:09in Pinellas County, all these cars that are sitting underneath the apartment buildings
03:14where many people stayed because they are obviously elevated, they totaled.
03:18They were under several feet of water themselves and so many people who stayed said the cars
03:24were floating.
03:25Bam.
03:26It just flooded and this whole place, it felt like we were in the ocean.
03:27I mean, I was sitting on my balcony watching and I'm like, I'm out at sea and there's waves
03:33everywhere.
03:34And then we watched the boats come floating across.
03:37Floating across an entire parking lot, ending up against this row of homes that are right
03:45along the causeway as you make your way here to Treasure Island.
03:48So it's just getting rid of that darn mud, but you can see how high the water came.
03:55So it's a good three feet or so of water in here.
03:59Had you ever had water inside?
04:00Never.
04:01In 19 years?
04:02No, not a lot.
04:03And it's a sturdy building.
04:05Yeah, you can see the water line on the chair here.
04:08And I have a feeling nothing's going to work either.
04:12It'll start rusting.
04:13Yeah, I unplugged everything today just to make sure when the electric hose is on that
04:18it's in line.
04:19Yeah.
04:20Along the beaches here in Tampa Bay, Hurricane Helene acted in a way sort of like a blizzard.
04:26You can see just how many feet of sand was carried in with the record storm surge.
04:31And now it's piled up as people have to dig out and an area that is always welcoming
04:36to guests.
04:37At this point, they're just so overwhelmed.
04:39They're trying to recover what they have left and everybody else, they're saying, please
04:44stay away.
04:45The beaches aren't open for business.
04:47Our attention spans are small and our memories short, but how can you forget Tropical Storm
04:52Ada in 2020?
04:55I'm stuck.
04:57You're stuck?
05:00Hurricane Helene swept in storm surge three to four feet above Adalia storm surge.
05:06The result, the costliest storm in generations.
05:10I'm stunned by the water line here.
05:12Oh, it's even higher inside.
05:14Well, I guess the walls are out now, but yeah, that came up during it, so that's not the
05:19full water line.
05:20I think it's probably about here, but you'll be able to see inside the walls.
05:24It's probably still wet with cement.
05:29You can see it was up to here.
05:33And you guys closed in July?
05:35July 1st, yeah.
05:37And so you started slowly moving stuff in and when was the official move-in date going
05:41to be?
05:42It was the 29th of September, so three days before this all happened.
05:46So yeah, we actually, we were planning on moving down on that Sunday and then we ended
05:52up, I was trying to get my friends to come out here and see what was going on, but no
05:57one had access to the roads because they were so flooded, even two days after, so flooded.
06:02So finally someone on Saturday came and they literally told us to sit down before telling
06:08us what happened.
06:11I saw some pictures and we decided to just drive down Saturday night so we could try
06:15to handle it and we're doing the best we can right now with it, so.
06:19And had you actually spent a night in the house yet?
06:21One, yeah.
06:22You spent one night here?
06:23Yeah.
06:24Holy cow.
06:25We got one night in here and we wanted to test it out.
06:28We actually, it was when we closed, we had a hotel and we were so stoked, so we're like,
06:32we got to get something in here ASAP just so we can sleep in it for one night, so.
06:36And it was comfy for the night, honestly, yeah.
06:38And this is your first home?
06:39Yeah.
06:40Yeah.
06:41It was very peaceful, but it's really a shame that this is the first experience I'm having
06:46with buying a home and I was so excited about this, obviously.
06:50Florida's housing market is like a dangerous game of hot potato.
06:53For years, homeowners have built in vulnerable areas, riding the allure of coastal living
06:58while passing the risk to the next buyer.
07:01It's the cost of clinging to the illusion that you can beat the odds.
07:05Here, paradise always comes with a storm attached.
07:09Once that storm passes and all the hype dies down, people forget and then people start
07:13buying again.
07:14After Adelia, I noticed it a little bit different.
07:17There was a much more buyer resistance in these neighborhoods.
07:21Finding buyers for these homes, we didn't have multiple offers like we had been seeing
07:24in other neighborhoods.
07:26There was much more resistance to buyers because they had just flooded.
07:30They were much more difficult to sell.
07:32A lot of homes that I see on the market today, just looking, have been on the market since
07:37they flooded in Adelia.
07:38They were renovated.
07:39They've been on the market.
07:40They haven't sold.
07:41And now, today, they're being sold for a lot value because they also flooded during
07:45Hélène.
07:46This is having a transformative impact more than any other storm because now homes are
07:52not being put on the market to be sold as a home.
07:56They're being sold for what is known as lot value or what the dirt is worth.
08:02One of the reasons that homes are being sold for lot value is because FEMA has restrictions
08:06on how much you can invest in remodeling a home.
08:09So, this home that was destroyed in the flood, the owners can only put a certain amount of
08:16money into renovating it before they have to bring the entire thing up to current FEMA
08:20code.
08:21So, for example, if this home might, they might only be able to put $50,000 in renovations
08:25into it before they have to bring it entirely up to code, and that might not cover the entire
08:30cost of renovations.
08:31And that means lifting it?
08:32Lifting it.
08:33Yeah.
08:34In most neighborhoods.
08:35And that's why we're seeing today a lot of people saying, I flooded last year.
08:38I flooded this year.
08:39It's going to be impossible to sell my house.
08:42I can only put X number of dollars into doing it anyways.
08:45I'm just going to sell it for the value of the lot.
08:47And some investor will come in and buy it and put something new up.
08:50This might be controversial, but if you want to live along the water here in Florida, this
08:57is the future.
08:58Homes built over 20 feet high.
09:02If you don't, this is a reality that can come within just a few hours from a hurricane like
09:09Helene.
09:10Is that sustainable even in a neighborhood like Shore Acres though?
09:13You know, I think that that's a matter of opinion.
09:15I think that a lot of contractors will tell you that it's sustainable.
09:19I think that the city will tell you it's sustainable.
09:23I sit back and I think, okay, these homes that were built 50 or 60 years ago, we thought
09:28at the time that they were built, that the way they were constructed was sustainable.
09:31And now 50 years later, look at what we're dealing with.
09:34I would be concerned that what we're going to construct today might be fine today, but
09:38if we're not thinking about what our climate looks like 50 years from now, we're just going
09:42to see history repeating itself.
09:43Unfortunately, you're going to see a lot of homes like this one where they're going to
09:46go in and put it back together.
09:48It'll be beautiful.
09:49But if we have another storm like this, they're going to be right back where they are today
09:52because they're not as bad as the last owners, but the last owners had a pile in their yard
09:57like this too.
09:58You knew it had been flooded before?
10:00Yes.
10:01Yeah.
10:02But I mean, you know, I'm sure you know that it's not heard of really to flood and we knew
10:07it was minimal flooding before.
10:08It was not this major of a project.
10:11You know, if it were to flood from what we heard, definitely did not expect this.
10:18This neighborhood in St. Petersburg is an alternative to building one of those sky-high
10:22houses along the waterfront.
10:24The homes here are further inland.
10:26They sit at about 50 feet or so of elevation.
10:28One thing you're going to notice, there aren't the sky-high piles of debris, just a few tree
10:34branches from the winds Hurricane Helene knocked down.
10:37The bay is only about five minute drive from here.
10:40The beaches, 20 minutes or so.
10:42But the properties here ironically sell for a fraction of the cost of those along the
10:46beaches or the bay.
10:48But in a worst case scenario that unfortunately the hurricane models appear to be showing
10:53hitting right here in the Tampa Bay area in just a few days, where I'm standing could
10:58be one of the last dry spots in the entire county.
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