“Staggering” destruction in a Florida city

STEINHATCHEE, Fla. – For nearly two decades, Scott Peters has poured his heart and soul into the bar at his Crabbie Dad's, just across the Steinhatchee River on Florida's Big Bend Coast.

It has weathered storms and floods, the ups and downs of tourism, the economy as a whole, and just about everything else the world has had to offer. And hurricanes have long been commonplace – and usually mild enough to make landfall in the city.

Locals threw hurricane parties, cracked open beers and howled in defiance of the wind. But after 2016, when Hurricane Hermine devastated the small town he calls home, they started taking the storms more seriously.

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

That was before Hurricane Helene barreled ashore and pushed a wall of water forward. Helene's eye hit the shore a few miles away, and Steinhatchee was hit perhaps harder than almost any other place.

And Peters' Bar may have been hit the hardest.

He rode out the storm in Gainesville, about 70 miles away, and had not yet returned home to survey the damage.

His friends and neighbors texted him photos and videos of the bar, but he feared that the small bridge leading to his house was gone, and perhaps the house itself.

“It’s complete devastation,” he said by phone Friday as sheriff’s deputies blocked access to the city. “I have to start from scratch.”

Helene pushed a wall of water estimated to be at least 10 feet high into the lowest areas of Steinhatchee, including where the bar was located. The iconic sign is gone, leaving only a few dollar bills that once clung to the rafters flapping in the wind.

The pieces of plywood that workers had carefully but hastily secured over the windows are also gone. And the windows are gone too. And the jaunty peach-colored walls. Most of what remains are the concrete steps and the back patio, as well as the partially collapsed tile floor.

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

For days before the storm, Peters and his employees cleaned out the beer coolers and liquor bottles.

“This thing is coming so damn quickly that we didn’t have time to prepare much,” Peters said before the storm.

Anything small enough to be dragged away they moved to higher ground. And Peters kept checking to see if his insurance policy would cover damage from a named storm.

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

On Friday, stunned residents shuffled through the city's muddy streets or bounced around on golf carts and pickup trucks as a Coast Guard helicopter clattered overhead.

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

“We have someone's freezer in the yard,” said Pamela Keen, 62, as she stood on her patio, looking at scattered packages of shrimp, green peppers, soda cans and a tub of shucked oysters lying amid the seagrass in her front yards. Down the street there were plates, beer cans and a paring knife on the sidewalk.

Keen and her husband, Gary, weathered the storm at a motel a few miles inland and were lucky to get a room at the last minute. Unfortunately, she said, it was also infested with cockroaches.

“I'm grateful we had a room, even though we had a lot of company,” laughed Keen, before kissing her husband and chiding her grandchildren to watch out for snakes.

As he rode around town in a golf cart with his wife, retiree John Kujawski pointed out the damage still from previous storms, including last summer's Hurricane Idalia, which also hit Steinhatchee.

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

As they navigated their bumpy path down muddy Riverside Drive, the couple pointed out guesthouses that had been leveled, docks thrown ashore and boats overturned and wedged into pilings near the Sea Hag Marina.

They noted that the new roofs were being destroyed again and mourned the damage to the recently opened Vargo's Buffalo Style Pizza restaurant.

“They had probably only sold $200 worth of pizza,” Kujawski said. “That's awful.”

From Gainesville, Peters was still struggling with the loss of his bar and possibly his home. He fishes for scallops and hopes that will be enough to keep him busy while he waits for insurance and possible government assistance.

He said he had previously turned down offers of government help but this time he was willing to accept any help he could get.

He plans to eliminate water and electric bills as soon as possible to avoid further costs as he thinks about the future.

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

And he said he would do that, taking years to rebuild and adding little by little if he got the money.

“Over the years I will continue to expand as I can afford it,” he said. “At least I saved on the alcohol. But now I have no place to put it.”

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