STEINHATCHEE — As Hurricane Helene pounded this tiny coastal community Thursday night, Charles and Dana Webb abandoned their wooden cottage, seeking shelter in a sturdier concrete house next door. They spent the next two hours huddled in a bathtub with their Great Dane puppy as the Category 4 storm raged outside.
The decision likely saved their lives.
“It’s gone. There’s a tree right on top of it,” Dana Webb of the cottage she and her husband moved into just weeks ago but fled when they heard storm debris crashing into it.
The house was split in half and destroyed by the hurricane, which also smashed restaurants, pushed boats onto land and drove one house into the middle of a road in the community along the Steinhatchee River on the state’s Big Bend.
Helene came ashore around 11:10 p.m. near the mouth of the Aucilla River, which is north of Steinhatchee but also in the Big Bend area.
That is a section of Florida’s Gulf Coast that is sparsely-populated and home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways. Steinhatchee has fewer than 600 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The region was walloped by Hurricane Idalia last year and now faces renewed devastation from Helene, which drove a storm surge of 10 to 12 feet into the area.
“This few blocks here was Steinhatchee,” said Russell Boucher, looking at 1st Avenue, the village’s main road, and two demolished eateries, Roy’s Restaurant and Crabbie Dad’s Bar & Grille, on Friday morning.
“This was Steinhatchee. This is what everyone came here for,” said Boucher, a resident and DJ who’d worked at both restaurants.
Linda Wicker, who has owned the waterfront Roy’s for 20 years, stood amid the wreckage of the restaurant with friends and family and said she would rebuild, just as she did after Idalia. The restaurant needed four months of work after that storm before it reopened earlier this year.
“I’ve already started talking to architects and engineers about doing what we need to do to get this thing back on the ground,” Wicker said.
Roy’s, in business since 1969, advertised that it served “good times and great food” and offered “the most awesome sunsets along the coast.”
Hurricane Helene turned the restaurant, which had outdoor dock seating, into a pile of building debris topped with a twisted tin roof. Scattered pots, pans and kitchen equipment as well as parts of a stove and other appliances were visible in the mess.
Residents who survived Idalia said they were stunned by Helene’s wrath, especially as forecasts showed the storm would make landfill further west near Tallahassee.
Tina Dilibero was sitting on a truck in a driveway of a friend’s house Friday looking at where her home, “the little blue one,” once stood.
“The house is gone,” she said.
She’d spent the night with her friend, whose house flooded but survived. Her house survived Idalia but slid off its foundation and was wrecked by Helene, as was her car.
The Webbs moved to Steinhatchee three weeks ago, moving into a rental cottage.
This week, they knew the hurricane was a threat but thought Tallahassee would be its target. By the time, they realized their new community was in its direct path, it was too late to leave.
Charles Webb did take the Taylor County Sheriff’s advice and used a blue Sharpie to write his name and birthdate on his arm, in case the worst happened and anyone needed to identify him after the storm.
Dana Webb said they spent the hours in the bathtub praying to survive the night.
“Would we do it again?” Charles Webb said. “No.”
But they plan to stay.
“We’re going to figure out what we’re going to do next,” he said. “I don’t plan on leaving Steinhatchee. This is where we decided to raise a family.”
