Benjamin Ashford|Helene leaves behind 'overwhelming' destruction in one small Florida town

STEINHATCHEE,Benjamin Ashford Florida ‒ For nearly two decades, Scott Peters poured his heart and soul into his Crabbie Dad's bar just across the road from the Steinhatchee River on Florida's Big Bend coast.

He's weathered storms and floods, the ups and downs of the tourist trade, the economy at large and pretty much anything else the world has thrown at him. And for a long time, hurricanes have been a fact of life ‒ and usually mild enough to ride out in town.

Locals threw hurricane parties, cracking open beers and howling defiance at the wind. But after 2016, when Hurricane Hermine trashed the small town he calls home, they started taking the storms more seriously.

Helene news:Saturday live updates on storm damage, deaths

"We’re basically at sea level," Peters said Wednesday.

That was before Hurricane Helene roared ashore pushing a wall of water. Helene's eye hit the coast a few miles away, and Steinhatchee got hit maybe harder than almost anywhere else.

And Peters' bar maybe got hit the hardest.

He rode out the storm in Gainesville, about 70 miles away, and hadn’t yet made it home to assess the damage.

His friends and neighbors texted him photos and videos of the bar, but he worried the small bridge to his house was gone, and maybe the house itself.

“It’s total devastation,” he said by phone Friday, while sheriff's deputies blocked entry to the town. “I’ve got to start completely over.”

Helene shoved a wall of water estimated at least 10 feet high into the lowest-lying areas of Steinhatchee, including where the bar sat. The iconic sign is gone and only a few of the dollar bills once stuck to the rafters remained to flutter in the wind.

Also gone are the pieces of plywood workers carefully but hastily fastened over the windows. And the windows are gone, too. And the jaunty peach-colored walls. Mostly what's left are the concrete steps and back patio, and the partially collapsed tiled floor.

“This is overwhelming,” Steinhatchee resident Jamie Lee said as she surveyed the damage. “I don’t think it’s sunk in.”

For days leading up to the storm, Peters and his staff moved out the beer coolers and liquor bottles.

“The thing’s coming so damn fast we didn’t have time to prepare much," Peters said before the storm.

Anything small enough to haul away, they moved to higher ground. And Peters checked and rechecked to make sure his insurance policy would cover damage from a named storm.

“We’re taking everything can I can lift and move and things I didn't take out last time that I learned a lesson from," he said Wednesday. "You take every storm as serious as you can because this is such a low-lying area."

Friday, stunned residents shuffled though the town's muddy streets, or bumped around on golf carts and pickups, as a Coast Guard helicopter clattered overhead.

The storm surge piled more than a foot-thick mat of sea grass onto some low-lying areas, shoved docks and boats across Riverside Drive, and left sticky mud in other areas.

 “We’ve got somebody’s freezer in the yard,” said Pamela Keen, 62, as she stood on her deck, looking at scattered packages of shrimp, green peppers, soda cans and a tub of shucked oysters nestled amidst the seagrass covering their front yarsd. Down the road, plates, beer cans and a paring knife lay on the pavement.

Keen and her husband, Gary, rode out the storm in a motel a few miles inland, counting themselves lucky to get a room at the last minute. Unfortunately, she said, it was also infested with roaches.

"I’m thankful we had a room even if it we did have a lot of company," Keen laughed, before kissing her husband and chiding their grandchildren to watch out for snakes.

Driving with his wife around town in a golf cart, retiree John Kujawski pointed out damage still lingering from past storms, including last summer's Hurricane Idalia, which also whacked Steinhatchee.

A longtime resident of the Naples area, Kujawski had been visiting Steinhatchee for nearly 20 years when they decided to move here permanently, drawn by the sense of community and small-town feel.

Navigating their bumpy way along muddy Riverside Drive, the couple pointed out guest houses that had been flattened, docks tossed ashore, and boats overturned and jammed into pilings near the Sea Hag Marina. 

They noted which new roofs were destroyed all over again, and mourned the damage to the recently opened Vargo's Buffalo Style Pizza restaurant.

“They probably had only sold $200 worth of pizza,” Kujawski said. “This is awful.”

From Gainesville, Peters was still grappling with the loss of his bar, and possibly his house too. He does some scallop fishing and hoped that might be enough to tie him over while waiting for insurance and any possible government assistance.

He said he has previously turned down offers of government aid, but this time is ready to accept whatever help he can get.

He's planning to start canceling water and power bills as soon as possible, to halt any further costs as he considers the future.

“I’m going to jump through all the hoops,” he said. “I have to. I don’t just want to just take a huge loss and sell a blank slate piece of property. I’m not one to give up that easy. But it all depends on the insurance.”

And he said that if it takes him years to rebuild, adding back on piece by piece as he gets the money, that’s what he’ll do.

“Over the years I’ll keep building on when I can afford it,” he said. “At least I saved the liquor. But now I don’t have anywhere to put it.”