Relief, but not much, after Cedar Key bears the brunt of Hurricane Helene

Cedar Key, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Helene’s wrath, received help after being left without power or running water.

CEDAR KEY – Two days after devastating winds unleashed a record-breaking storm surge, the Cavalry went into overdrive Saturday on Cedar Key to help the island, cut off from power and running water, recover from the devastating blow of Hurricane Helene.

Police estimated that 25% of the homes on this island of 720 people near Big Bend, Florida, were destroyed. So there was a lot of destruction and despair to heal in this rural oasis surrounded by a lush marsh where rows of pelicans skim the surface of the water.

Republican Senator Rick Scott was there to offer support – and pledge efforts to provide further assistance – to those who have suffered losses in this area, who have suffered the worst of what Helene inflicted on Florida. The First Baptist Church of Cedar Key began its first full day as a distribution site for those in need of drinking water, ice and food. And military personnel roamed the streets, some of them checking circuit breakers to make sure they were operational in case the power came back on.

Mercy Chefs from Virginia arrived with hot meals for the powerless.

The state contracts with the nonprofit organization as part of its disaster planning. And on her first day on the ground in Cedar Key, founder Ann LeBlanc estimates her organization has delivered more than 10,000 hot meals to areas cut off from power by Hurricane Helene. Five hundred were brought to Cedar Key on Saturday.

Preparations for mobilization begin almost as soon as a named storm appears on the National Hurricane Center’s website, she said.

“We’re not just chefs, we’re storm chasers,” LeBlanc said as she got behind the wheel of an SUV to stroll the battered streets of Cedar Key.

Here, the islanders were offered jambalaya, spiced carrots and a biscuit in white clam containers. The food was prepared in Newberry and then shipped in. The organization has a mobile kitchen that can be used even in places without electricity. But the power is close enough to assemble meals there, LeBlanc said.

A lot of it was left at the First Baptist Church of Cedar Key. But anyone seen on the street was offered one by LeBlanc. She wore a T-shirt with her organization’s logo and was accompanied by a marketing team who filmed her street mission.

Sonya Jurdy, 87, was the recipient of one. The day before Helene’s arrival, after giving her guests a tour of the destroyed stairs of her home that she had just paid someone to replace, the retired teacher and real estate agent sat down overlooking the Gulf and ate with relish. She thought it was delicious.

LeBlanc jumped back into her SUV and declared, “I love it when people say it’s good.”

“Mercy Chefs pack up and leave as soon as power is restored in a community,” LeBlanc said.

“When grocery stores and restaurants are open and operating, preventing free meals actually hurts a community that is struggling to rebuild,” LeBlanc said. “We’re trying to help residents get back to normal.”

Vivid feelings and efforts to recover

They trudged their way back to normality along the main street of Cedar Key, which had been leveled by Hurricane Helene. Suwanee Spirits employees hauled out the bottles that could be salvaged Saturday, and owner Stoney Smith searched for a product that is currently unavailable in its chaotic situation without power.

With the noise of power generators and heavy moving equipment in the air before noon, the reality of the situation sunk in the day after Smith watched bottles of Crown Royal whiskey float away as water that reached the ceiling of his liquor store drained away.

“I’m hot, sweaty and tired,” said Smith, whose family he said has made the liquor store the oldest running business on this Gulf of Mexico island. “Do you have a cold beer for me?”

But seriously, on Saturday he had a meeting with a Cedar Key building official to discuss when he could open, he said. And he hopes it can happen as quickly as possible and without a lot of red tape — or something like a requirement to raise the height of the building by 17 feet.

“It’s sad,” said the entrepreneur, who is an eighth-generation Cedar Key family member who also runs a gas station and laundromat and rents commercial space in Cedar Key. “You spend your whole life doing something, and then one night between 8:30 and 1:00 it’s all gone.”

Smith, whose liquor store opened 60 years ago on the site where the destroyed U.S. Post Office now stands, said he worries that tourist-oriented business owners like himself will soon throw in the towel if they don’t get the support they need . He said there was a thriving pencil factory here until a hurricane destroyed it. If this kills tourism businesses, tourists will no longer come to this place to watch the sun sink into the Gulf.

“We need something like an enterprise zone,” Smith said.

Sen. Scott: Build taller for greater resilience

Scott has good news and bad news for Smith. Florida’s junior senator is on the phone every day with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to learn more, he said during an appearance Saturday in Cedar Key. But at the same time, he said the long-term future should be higher in places like these.

Sporting his signature navy ballcap and rolled-up sleeves, Scott was live from Cedar Key with the Weather Channel Saturday morning as part of an extensive disaster tour that took Scott from Eastpoint to the Panhandle.

“You’ve done this so many times,” Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Bettes told Scott, who has been an elected official for eight named hurricanes since beginning his political career as governor. “What are you thinking here?”

After expressing his condolences for those hit hard by Helene and his commitment to providing needed resources, Scott also had good news for companies that make stilts.

“You have to build higher,” Scott said when asked how hurricanes in the future could not be so devastating. “We just have to understand that for some reason we are having a lot more storm surge. They don’t know why we have more storm surges… We’ve never seen a storm surge like this.”

“There is also a lot more rain. And we have a lot more of it,” Scott admitted. He doesn’t think it can be stopped, although scientists believe more heat causes more water.

“I always focus on things you can have an impact on,” Scott said.

Scott also took the time to annoy the locals.

“We’re glad you’re here,” said Michael Bobbitt, 48, of Cedar Key, who was at The New York Times for weathering the storm on the famous Gulf of Mexico island.

“Things are torn apart, but we are putting them back together,” said the writer and mussel farmer.

Workers are standing by to help with recovery

Stay or go? Charlie Freeman, a demolition worker from Louisiana, faced a dilemma Saturday like the one Gulf Coast residents had contemplated just days earlier when Hurricane Helene set its sights on them.

The 40-year veteran of countless hurricane recovery efforts considered how much of a chance he would be giving up on Cedar Key if he went back to get his gear. His truck had been parked at the entrance; He was only able to get to the island because he sneaked in with a roofer whose client had gone to the police checkpoint to give him entry permission.

If he went back to get his things, he might not be able to get back to the island, he explained.

“Right now we’re just doing a demo of the falling pieces and getting them out on the road,” said Freeman, who works for his cousin’s business and drove here last night. “We haven’t done any full demolitions yet. ”

Workers like him are not allowed on the island en masse because many of the island’s homeowners are not here. At least that’s what he was told, he explained. The company’s first equipment he worked with Saturday morning, a skid steer loader and a grapple, arrived on the island before passport verification began, he said.

“They’re trying to give the homeowners a chance to come here and look at everything before they let the public in,” he said.

Cedar Key Mayor Susan Colson said she was too busy recovering to speak to a reporter.

Freeman said he sees a lot of opportunity in Helene’s rubble.

“There’s a lot of work here,” he said, looking at a row of destroyed houses. By 2 p.m. he had started at least two of them.

Anne Geggis is an insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at [email protected]. Support our journalism. Subscribe today.

Relief, but not much, after Cedar Key bears the brunt of Hurricane Helene

ByJasper

Cedar Key, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Helene’s wrath, received help after being left without power or running water.

Vivid feelings and efforts to recover

Sen. Scott: Build taller for greater resilience

Workers are standing by to help with recovery

By Jasper

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