In 33 years of living on Treasure Island, Michael Ward had seen many erroneous weather warnings. But on Thursday, when Hurricane Helene reached this small island in West Florida, it was for real.
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The 67-year-old man could well have followed his wife to visit friends inland. He didn’t want to. And bitterly regrets it.
He was electrocuted when water rushed into his single-storey house and blocked the exits. Finally getting out through a window, he walked some 800 meters, submerged up to his waist, to join a neighbor who has a floor.
“I can’t believe this happened. I have lived in Florida for 44 years and, too often, the information about these storms has turned out to be false,” Mr. Ward, who spent the night at this neighbor’s house, told AFP.
“It seems that luck has left us.”
Treasure Island is part of a belt of small islands in the Gulf of Mexico, just west of Saint Petersburg, a city in Florida, United States, to which it is connected by a bridge. Its population of 6,500 inhabitants, which includes many retirees, is rather well off.
Hurricane Helene caused 11 victims there on Thursday evening. At least 53 people have died in total in the eastern and southeastern United States, according to authorities.
Hélène made landfall in northeast Florida as a category 4 hurricane on a scale of 5, blowing winds measured at 225 km/h.
Climate change is making rapid intensification of storms more likely and increasing the risk of more powerful hurricanes, scientists say, by warming sea and ocean waters.
On Treasure Island, the storm surge caused by Hélène reached nearly 2.10 meters. The sidewalks are covered in mud and the streets littered with objects of all kinds: sofas, beds, refrigerators, doors…
“It’s a nightmare”
Arthur Czyszczon, 42, walks back and forth between the outside world and the hotel he runs with his family on the seafront, the Page Terrace.
Mattresses, bedside tables and lamps are piled up outside. The hotelier is one of those who fled the island before Hélène’s arrival. The time has now come to take stock.
“It’s heartbreaking to see your community go through this. “The salt water causes enormous damage,” he laments, wondering aloud how his neighbors will manage to recover.
Most single-storey housing was made uninhabitable by the disaster and many residents do not have flood insurance, considered too expensive.
“It’s going to take time before we get restaurants back, houses and hotels repaired. The community will have to unite and work together better than before the storm,” calls Mr. Czyszczon.
Mr. Ward was unable to sleep the night of the disaster, also imagining the long road to reconstruction. “I kept thinking about all the work I’ll have to do,” he says.
Near the bridge that leads to Saint Petersburg, Ross Sanchez doesn’t want to think about the future. Like dozens of other Treasure Island victims, he carries plastic bags filled with what he was able to save from his home.
Local authorities have banned vehicles from circulating during the cleanup. Residents therefore have to walk two kilometers, in very hot weather, to reach the continent.
“I have lived here for almost 40 years and I have never seen anything like this,” says Mr. Sanchez.
“I feel too many emotions. A total shock. My four-year-old son’s toys are missing, his crib, everything is missing.”
Not far from him, Gary Potenziano, 74, pushes a cart with difficulty. It also contains what he managed to preserve from the hurricane.
“It’s a nightmare,” sums up his wife Patty, 68 years old.
“Hopefully we’ll be back home tomorrow morning to work, because we have so much to do. Everything in our house is completely destroyed.
