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Siesta Key staggered by Hurricane Helene’s storm surge

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Siesta Key staggered by Hurricane Helene’s storm surge

Hurricane Helene‘s storm surge inundated neighborhoods on Siesta Key, leaving businesses and residents with conditions unlike anything most had seen on the picture-perfect island barrier island resort destination.

Sarasota County officials said at least six feet of Gulf of Mexico seawater shoved outward by Helene’s expansive and powerful wind field crashed over Siesta Key, causing widespread damage, according to a news conference on the island Friday afternoon.

“All of our focus has been on the barrier islands and all the residents on the Intracostal waterway,” Assistant Sarasota County Fire Chief Tim Dorsey said.

Dorsey said at the news conference that fire department crews had been working all through the night responding to structure fires, rising water with trapped residents seeking evacuation.

“A number of those throughout all the barrier islands,” he said. “We had four to seven foot (storm surge) just like meteorologists predicted.

“They were dead-on.”

Rescue crews continued to work Friday with Sarasota officials warning anyone in the area to be careful of downed power lines.

More: Anna Maria Island devastated by Helene, Manatee County reports major damage

Sarasota County Commissioner Mark Smith evacuated his Siesta Key home during the storm, but returned Friday morning. He was lucky.

The water did not enter his home, although he said it was inches from doing so.

A business he operates in Siesta Village wasn’t as fortunate, ending up with two and a half feet of water inside, Smith said.

“There’s a lot of property damage,” Smith said. “… Siesta Village is wiped (out) right now and it’s going to take us a while to come back.”

Smith said the popular shopping and tourist spot had three feet of water over the entire commercial area with picnic tables floating from the center of the village all the way to Truist Bank on Ocean Boulevard.

Siesta Key a big tourism driver for Sarasota County

From 2020 through 2022, Siesta Key brought in more than $24.5 million in bed tax revenue accounting for 27% of tourism development tax dollars in all of Sarasota County.

The island’s white sand beaches have fostered a thriving tourism location that’s for the most part avoided catastrophic hurricane strikes, until now.

Throughout Siesta Key signs of storm surge were visible Friday. A 7-Eleven on Midnight Pass Road had a water mark at about three feet. Sidewalks and side streets remained flooded well into the day.

Just over the Stickney Point bridge on the island, Tana and Sean Anderson arrived at their business — Crescent Beach Market — at 6:30 a.m.

They had sandbagged the entrances and hoped it would prevent water from getting inside the business, but when Sean Anderson opened the front door, water rushed out.

Sand and dirt caked the floors and the Andersons got to work.

She said she’s worried how quickly they’ll be able to get back up and running since the business now employs 17 people. Tana also expressed worry that it could take some time for the entire Siesta Key tourist-based economy to return to normal.

“My main concern is my business,” she said. “It’s just going to take some time.”

Mud everywhere after Hurricane Helene

Longtime Siesta Key resident and community activist Lourdes Ramirez had as much as three feet of water intrusion from the storm surge, more than at any time since she began living there in 1999.

She said she had thought they had avoided the worst of the storm, with only some rain and wind gusts by Thursday evening, but at about 9 p.m. the water was ankle-deep in her backyard.

“Water was already up to our ankles and there was no rain. So we knew this was surge,” she said.

Ramirez lives near Siesta Key Village, not near a canal and not particularly by the Gulf of Mexico, and her property is 9 feet above flood elevation, she said.

Rameriz said water came in from several entry points and that likely many of her neighbors also have storm surge damage.

That would include Michael Holderness, an owner of vacation rentals and the 55-room Siesta Key Beach Resort and Suites.

Holderness, a lifelong Sarasota County resident and Siesta Key business owner, said the storm surge flooded his business and “hundreds of” rental properties, leaving a long recovery process for his property management business on the barrier island. He said it could take months before he’s up and running at full speed again.

“It’s never been this bad in the history of Siesta,” he said of the storm surge.

Anything that’s ground level has water intrusion, with the Jamaica Royale and Casa Mar neighborhoods particularly hard hit, he said.

“Mud is everywhere,” he said. “Think the first step is to start pressure washing.”

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