Longboaters experience "hurricane fatigue" after two hurricanes in a row

Co-owner of Lazy Lobster, Michael Garey, has been the eyes and ears of the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key during the 2024 hurricane season. 

As he drove down Gulf of Mexico Drive after Hurricane Milton, he noted many piles of landscape debris as he passed. Trees and branches scattered across the sidewalks, lawns and golf courses on both Gulf and Bay sides and the sand piles have grown taller than Hurricane Helene had left them.

The most interesting thing Garey noticed was how the piles of people’s belongings on the side of the road had stayed put and multiplied. 

“It seems that Milton left us with more landscape debris,” said Garey. “Helene was more of water and wind storm while Milton was all about the wind. I can not believe how many trees and branches and parts of our beautiful landscape are all over the place.”

Many people noticed the same thing as they drove back to their homes after Hurricane Milton on Oct. 11 and 12.

Some Longboaters chose to drop in to assess the damage and then head back to their hotels for the rest of the weekend. Some decided to wait it out until the power and water came back to come to the island. 

As they wait patiently for updates from the town, they all have the same feeling: exhaustion or, as Country Club Shores resident Tammy Sachs called it, “hurricane fatigue.”

With the prediction of a hectic hurricane season, Sachs’ husband Chris was surprised the big storms hit in the second half of the season. Tammy said she has never seen a hurricane season like this as someone who is a Florida native. The two were devastated when they had to pick up twice to evacuate.

With the hopes of moving back to her condominium in Seaplace, June Hessel headed back Friday to check out the island. It was frustrating for her to head back to the mainland for the rest of the weekend while they waited for water and power to return.

“We are very grateful that we had less surge because that is really what destroyed the homes of so many during Helene,” said Hessel. “We were just so sad and worried about what we were going to come back to, but thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as we thought. But Longboat isn’t going to be the same for a while now.”

As resident Austin Scherer went to Lido Key on Friday, he echoed everyone else's thoughts in shock at the mess of debris and people's belongings around the Key and St. Armands Circle. He said it is going to be a long road to return it back to paradise.

As October moves toward the end, Longboaters can’t help but wonder what this snowbird season will look like.

Longboat Harbour resident Karen Pashkow said she evacuated to Sarasota in high anxiety because of the impact expected of Milton. Her anxiety wasn’t severed when her hotel lost power for two days.

While updating her snowbird friends up north, she heard many have decided to postpone their flights to come back to Longboat while they wait for it to return to normal. 

Even with the season expected to look different this year, Longboaters still wear their positive attitudes proudly as they go back to the island. 

"We do have a hashtag, which is #Longboat Key Strong," said Chris Sachs. "There's a lot of resilience. This is a great community effort with everybody pitching in, especially with communication. People have been really supportive of each other. We have a text chain in our neighborhood which almost turned into kind of like a support group, and it was really positive."