Hurricane Hermine Hits Small Town Florida Hard

Labor Day brought perfect weather to Florida’s Gulf Coast, the kind fishermen and scallopers like: bright and sunny, not too hot, calm seas.  At the Sea Hag Marina in Steinhatchee, one couple stood at the cleaning station, shucking scallops fresh out of the ocean.  Boaters were anchoring at the marina docks and families straggled in to the crowded, brightly-lit little shop for soda, t-shirts, sun lotion, and candy bars. The weathered wood bar outside with its blue, yellow and red bar stools was open.  Rental boats stood at the ready, the dry-storage racks were stacked three levels high with customer’s boats, and the lot was freshly blown and swept.

If not for the faint smell of bleach, and some merchandise spread out and drying on the back picnic tables, you’d never know that just three nights ago, the shop was hip-deep in water; that 30 foot, 15,000 pound sport fishing boats had washed off the storage rack and a block up the road; that all the docks were a serpentine mess.

Hurricane Hermine slammed the west coast of Florida Thursday, September 1^st, around midnight, sending a 9 foot storm surge over the banks of canals and rivers and shooting saltwater through marinas, restaurants and houses before petering out a third of a mile inland.  It was not even a big hurricane, as they go, but its shape bulged heavily to the eastern side, the most dangerous side of a hurricane for wind speed.   The eye made landfall just south of state capital Tallahassee and the eastern winds and storm surge damaged septic systems, power grids, roads and property all the way down to Tampa.

But it’s in the small historic fishing villages that dot the marshy coast for more than 200 miles between those two big cities that the damage has been knee-buckling. Without big-city resources, they’re fighting back with the only weapon they have: community spirit.

At the family-owned Sea Hag Marina, perched on the river’s edge where the black, gator-infested Steinhatchee River meets the blue-green water of the Gulf of Mexico, they’d been prepping for Labor Day weekend – the end of scallop season and one of the busiest weekends on the coast.  Come Friday, it should have been happy bedlam – boats would be lined up at every ramp in town.  All weekend, the Gulf would be dotted with anchored boats and dozens of snorkelers collecting scallops in the shallow waters.  At night, restaurants in the town of 1,047 residents would have waiting lines.  Lodging?  If you hadn’t booked several months ago, you probably wouldn’t find any. College football’s kickoff weekend would be on every television and radio.

Hurricane Hermine changed that game plan.  By 7:00 a.m. Friday morning, employees of the family-owned Sea Hag were hauling wet merchandise out of the store, running pumps and shop vacuums.  They used forklifts to bring back boats marooned all up and down 1^st Street.  They fitted the buckled-up floating docks back on their posts.  They hauled ruined bait coolers and deep-freezers up the road to the dumpsters.

Volunteers showed up by the handful from the community, even though the storm had washed through many homes and ruined everything inside.

“That’s how it’s done around here,” said Curtis Lashley, who owns a produce stand called The Nut Hut in front of his home with his wife Teresa.  The Lashley’s home was spared – the storm surge stopped within a couple hundred feet.  They wanted to help out, so they bought two Boston Pork Butts, smoked them on the big grill in the front yard, and started serving free sandwiches and sodas to anyone who wanted one.   The American Legion donated the buns.  Then the food bank called – they were going to lose all their food because the power was out, so they donated 60 pounds of chicken.  Teresa said they served 110 meals on Sunday, and by mid-day Monday had served 75 more.

Other volunteers came from as far away as Jacksonville, FL, 130 miles to the northeast.  They worked in the marina store, rinsing and drying sunglasses, display cases, and dive gear. They moved picnic tables back where they belonged.  They came in the oppressive heat and mugginess because the area is well-loved for fishing, diving and hunting.  And for being all things Florida’s mega tourism is not.

“I’ve been in lots of places just like that from Louisiana to the Keys,” said Jacksonville resident Randy Mancuso, who stores his boat at the Sea Hag.  “But none of them appreciate the visitor like they do in Steinhatchee, and none work as hard to help you. They are genuinely excited for you when your fishing goes well.”

The coastline from north of Tampa up to where the state curves west is known as the Big Bend.  It’s made up of small fishing villages with names like Homosassa Springs and Apalachicola that hark back to Florida’s first residents.  The coastline here is shallow and marshy.  Some of the rivers that flow into the Gulf are spring-fed and clear as air.  Others are dyed tea- black from the roots of oak, pine, and cypress trees that grow thick along the banks. Salt marsh flats, low-lying land that’s partially submerged at high tide, hold oyster beds that have made generations of families a living.   The tidal range here is greater than the marshes in the mid-Atlantic and Northern states so tidal creeks can run for miles and accommodate small boats, making them popular with fishermen and hunters. Grass beds in six to ten feet of water hold scallops, which can be picked up by hand during season.  Offshore the fishing is good year around, said Mancuso, in shallower, clearer water than in the Atlantic.  That’s why Jacksonville families have been going to the Big Bend for generations.

“I’ve been going for 12 years now, and I’m still a newcomer,” he said.

Big development in Florida went to the pretty, sandy beaches and took with them big roads, big stores, big money, and now, big population.  Most of the small towns in the Big Bend aren’t easy to get to – north-south running Highway 19 is miles from the interstate and parts of it were underwater after the storm and closed.  Businesses are mostly locally-owned:  restaurants, grocery stores, motor lodges, marinas, and until a few years ago, most didn’t have online listings.  Visitors trying to figure out where to go had to rely on word-of-mouth.

Not long ago in Steinhatchee, the only place to get a cell signal was the top of the bridge that crosses the Steinhatchee River.  Business folks in town visiting could be seen clustered on the bridge at night making their calls.  A national magazine feature and the real estate boom brought outside attention to Steinhatchee.  Property values soared and construction began on condos and new docks.  Then the crash came, and just like Monday night of the Labor Day weekend, all the outsiders left, and the town settled back to a quieter existence.

With the Sea Hag up and running, and clean up well underway in several Big Bend cities, things didn’t look too bad under sunny skies that Monday afternoon.

“Oh no, it’s bad,” said Teresa quietly, as children played in the yard behind her.  “There’s folks here in the neighborhood that have lost everything in their home.”   A drive through the residential area showed huge piles lining the road – refrigerators, washers, dryers, sofas, mattresses, baby cribs in front of every home.  Ditto Horseshoe Beach and Keaton Beach.  Instead of garbage trucks, the county sent out a dump truck with a huge mechanical claw to start picking up the debris. Curtis said that after the ’93 storm, people cleaned up and moved back in right away.  But this time, officials weren’t allowing them to move back in without an inspection.

In fact, at a Monday morning community meeting, Sea Hag Marina’s owner, Charlie Norwood, said that even though his business was running, he was worried about his employees, some of whom lost everything and are living in cottages usually rented to visitors.   He said some are considering leaving. County Administrator Dustin Hinkel said the county would make it a priority to get the county docks fixed so boaters could come and bring revenue back into the community.

Tri-County Electric Cooperative aimed to have the final 340 meters fixed by Tuesday, except for the ones with extensive water damage or those needing inspections.  Also on Tuesday, FEMA and state officials will tour, but it might take up to 30 days for them to decide what financial help will be given.  For some in the area, that’s longer than they can go without a paycheck.

Monday’s temperatures had cooled to 88 degrees.  The trailing rain bands seemed to finally have moved through.  The sky was a clear blue and the sparkling Gulf was lying there all calm and friendly-looking, like a hound dog who knows he’s been bad.

But for miles to the north and miles to the south, the gut-kick of Hermine will leave folks in the quiet nooks of old Florida cleaning up and coping for months to come.

Next up:  How You Can Help Hurricane Hermine Storm Victims.