- April 11, 2025
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From the southern tip of Siesta Key to the northern edge of Longboat Key, life after the 2024 hurricane season along Sarasota County’s barrier islands is largely the same.
Some steadfast residents have vowed, and are doing whatever they can, to stay. Those who do stay know they are losing neighbors they have lived alongside for years, if not decades. Relationships will be lost, perhaps new ones forged in their stead.
“Life feels like it is mostly back to normal, except for the fact many people aren't here,” St. Armands resident Chris Goglia said. “You definitely feel the absence of some neighbors and friends around your house and when you're out and about on St. Armands Circle. But aside from that — going out to dinner, doing whatever activities you do like golf or boating — life seems mostly back to normal.”
On Sept. 26, Hurricane Helene, a category 4 storm, roared past the coast, more than 100 miles offshore on its way to landfall in the Big Bend, however, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it sent a measured storm surge of 6.68 feet on Longboat Key. NOAA didn't have official numbers for Siesta Key, but it's expected to be between 5.7 and 6.7 feet.
Two weeks later, at 12:30 a.m. on October 10, Hurricane Milton landed on Siesta Key Beach as a Category 3 with 115 mph winds ripping off roofs, downing trees and power outages throughout Siesta Key and Sarasota.
After the hurricanes, Longboat Key suffered more than $180 million in damages, and all of Sarasota County suffered $440 million.
Cleanup of the coastline with sand pushed everywhere took time, effort and money. But, beaches at Siesta Key and Lido Beach reopened quickly in November.
With all the repairs, damage and inhabitable areas, tourism numbers expectantly took a drop. But regained footing in the latter months of January through March.
Area businesses have suffered the most, especially on St. Armands, where life is still trying to return to normal, with some businesses trying to rebound or others that have just left.
Mainstays like the Old Salty Dog on City Island only recently reopened in early March, while O'Leary's Tiki Bar at Bayfront Park remains closed.
Water from Milton flooded the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall canceling events from October through New Year's Eve.
The ceiling at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport collapsed at Concourse B, but in a show of resilience, not only was the ceiling replaced, SRQ continued and opened its new Concourse A in January.
In the next two editions of the Longboat and Sarasota/Siesta Key Observers, we will look back and forward to what happened to residents, and where the town, city and county stand in recovery efforts. We'll look at permitting and who has been getting permits and who hasn't and what businesses have suffered and gained post hurricanes.
Deep down, it's the residents of Longboat Key and Sarasota that have been through the most, and their stories shed the best light of where we were and where we are now.
What they all share in common is their affinity for living in their coastal communities from the north end of Longboat Key to the southern tip of Siesta Key, and everywhere in between.
Six months after Milton punctuated the stormy season with its landfall directly over the Sarasota area, residents shared with the Observer their stories of resilience and resignation as the long road to recovery continues.
It was 9 p.m. and Hurricane Helene was heading to the Florida panhandle when Lourdes Ramirez recalls losing power in her Siesta Key home. No big deal, she thought, believing she and her husband, Eric, dodged another one.
Then she heard the sound of water sloshing outside the house.
Living just less than a mile from the coast and not along a canal, she never considered storm surge to be a danger, especially from a storm 100 miles off the coast and heading north.
“We took a flashlight and looked in our backyard and saw water. We knew because it hadn't been raining that much so we knew that it was storm surge,” she said. “Fortunately, my next door neighbor had a second-story patio and the house is on stilts. She was not there, so we spent the night on her patio waiting out the storm. It was my husband, myself and our cat up there waiting to be rescued the next morning.”
Partially covered by a roof, they were high, but not dry as wind-driven squalls rained on them throughout the night.
Among the Longboat Key residents who navigated the worst of the storms is Deborah DiCarlo as Helene ravaged her home.
"The water must have come in pretty forcefully, because everything we thought we lifted high enough got knocked over or was floating," she said. "Practically everything below 4 feet down there was destroyed."
After their St. Armands Key home flooded for the first time in the 47 years their family owned it by Helene, Hugh and Anne Fiore were working to restore it. Sheetrock was removed at the 4-foot line and most of their possessions discarded.
Then came Hurricane Milton. This time they evacuated to the East Coast and, upon returning to find their hurricane-impact slider cracked, additional home damage and their dock washed away, they decided it was time to move.
Quickly closing on the sale in January, the Fiores moved across the Ringling Bridge to the Indian Shores neighborhood on the mainland, just across the street from Sarasota Bay but elevated in a modern architecture home.
“My father purchased on St. Armands in 1977,” said the 82-year-old Fiore. “I’m not sure if we had 100-mile-per-hour winds or if the older part of the house settled a little bit, but it cracked the slider, at which point I got two builders out there. They both told me the same thing; that we'd have to take the house down and build a new house.
Longboat Key Village resident Rusty Chinnis was away at a conference when hurricanes Helene and Milton swept past the island.
Before he left, he prepared the best he could. He thought he raised tools and other items high enough off of the ground.
“We thought we prepared,” Chinnis said. “The worst I’ve ever had in that garage is 18 inches, so we put everything up 36 inches and then we had a 4-foot storm surge.”
Though he was away from home during the storms, Chinnis said his property never lost power through Helene or Milton, thanks to the solar panels on his roof. “We’ve had solar panels for a really long time, but that really played out,” Chinnis said. “We never lost power through any of the hurricanes.”
While he was still away from the island, Chinnis invited neighbors to use his porch’s electricity to charge cell phones in the days immediately following the hurricanes. When he returned to his home, he found the garage flooded. The storm surge destroyed one of their cars, plenty of tools, fishing equipment and art supplies.
When allowed to return to their home, the Ramirezes found the high water line of 3 feet outside the house and 2 feet inside. All furniture, keepsakes, antiques and other contents ruined.
“I thought I knew about hurricanes living on Siesta Key,” she said. “I always felt like I was prepared. But the water that intrudes the house is not only salt water, but you’ve also got sewage and other debris. And of course, that makes things not salvageable, and we had to toss most of that stuff out.”
Fortunately, for DiCarlo, the kitchen and main living areas were located on the second floor, so they made do living above the damage. Still, they had plenty to tackle in the aftermath, which took out their router, left debris splashed on the walls, and eventually caused mold damage they have since fixed.
Carlos Peralta and his wife, Johanna Jacome, both had a dream of raising their family on Siesta Key Beach.
“This storm had a profound impact on our family,” Carlos said. “We lost everything — our home, our cars and all of our belongings. It was especially hard for my wife and kids … because this was a new, complete new life for us. It was a very difficult adjustment as well, but I guess we all pulled together as a family and found a strength we didn't know we had.”
The family spent weeks, even working with Carlos’ mother-in-law, to remove everything from the home, yet life still went on. Their children Mia Peralta, 11, and Santhiago Peralta, 15, are looking to follow in the footsteps of the family’s oldest child, Alejandro Peralta, who is currently studying to become a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University and has returned home twice during the construction.
Carlos said one of the first things the family did after the storm was set up a room for Mia and Santhiago to study, and for Mia to practice the piano.
About two weeks ago, Peralta’s family finalized the repairs on their Siesta Key home, where they have been living amid the ongoing work since Hurricane Helene.
“It feels a little weird, because everything is new, and I guess you have to get used to your new bed, your new living room, your new kitchen cabinets,” said Peralta.
On Longboat Key, the upper floors of Chinnis’ house were fine, but he’s now at work redoing the garage and making renovations to elevate other objects, for example placing tools on higher racks and installing additional shelving.
“Basically I’m just going to put everything in the house assuming that it’s going to flood. If it doesn’t, then fine, but we’re not going to get caught again,” Chinnis said.
He also replanted his entire garden and lawn, making a switch to native plants more salt-tolerant and less likely to succumb from future storm surges.
Like Chinnis’ recovery, there are many places on Longboat Key further along in their recovery than Spanish Main Yacht Club.
Hurricanes Helene and Milton left the entire Spanish Main community and its 212 units in disarray, its residents displaced.
Spanish Main is a 55-and-older community with one-story villas that finished construction in 1972. The community is situated on a unique plot of land with a canal, which is likely why Helene’s storm surge was this damaging to the community.
Permitting required to rebuild has been slow.
"We're not even close to being done," said one resident. "We don't even have the drywall put up. We can't get past inspections."
Another resident, Adrienne Scott, said she was not aware of anyone who has been able to move back to their residence at Spanish Main. Scott and her husband Bill Anderson, both local real estate agents, can’t wait to move back into their Spanish Main home.
“My husband and I are still very much looking forward to getting back into our house. We have some wonderful memories there,” Scott said.
For Ramirez, the decision to renovate and stay on Siesta Key was never in question. Shortly after the storm, she said 75% of people she knows there said they were leaving. As time passed, that percentage, she said, is down to about half. Even at that, she said the back-to-back hurricanes are likely to change Siesta Key forever.
“My neighbors across the street sold her house for the land, and my neighbor down the street just put theirs out on the market,” she said. “I do see a lot of people putting their houses up for sale because they just don't want to go through that experience again.”
The result, she expects, is a lot of renovated and rebuilt homes will become short-term rentals, and she is losing neighbors with whom they were close.
Fiore inherited his St. Armands home in 2004 when his mother died. They homesteaded here that same year and moved here permanently in 2010 after selling his auto dealership in Connecticut.
If he were 20 years younger, Fiore said, they might have entertained rebuilding, but as his age didn’t want to spend the next two years or more on such a project.
They also didn’t want to move far away, either.
“I like Sarasota a lot. My father bought his first house in Southgate in 1973, so my wife and I have been coming here for a long time,” Fiore said. “It’s near and dear to my heart.”
Longboat Key Town Commissioner-At-Large BJ Bishop is among the residents wanting to rebuild. Need to say where she lives and what happened to her Buttonwood house.
She filed for a demolition permit, but said the process overall has been slow, especially awaiting approvals from Florida Power & Light.
But there are a number of houses in Buttonwood that are also getting demolished. Others, she said, have left their properties altogether.
“There were a lot of houses that were torn down in Buttonwood. There are no plans for those people to rebuild,” Bishop said. “Those are neighbors that we’ve lost forever.”
The emotional toll of living in a flood-prone area and the financial burden of rebuilding and elevating homes proved too much for some of Bishop’s neighbors. About one-third of Buttonwood neighbors are rebuilding, one-third are leaving or selling and the rest are repairing at their current elevation.
After everything that has taken place, Peralta says the family’s desire to live on Siesta Key remains unchanged.
“We never considered leaving the island, because living near the beach comes with risk, and we understood that from the beginning,” he said. “Our dream of raising a family here has always been a part of who we are. This disaster, though incredibly challenging, ultimately made us stronger as a family, as individuals, and our commitment to this place remains intact.”
Bishop is taking steps to elevate her home.
Currently, at about four feet above sea level, she plans to add eight feet of elevation with the rebuild.
As president of the St. Armands Residents Association, Goglia has his fingers more firmly on the pulse that most of his fellow homeowners’ response to last year’s hurricane damage. Just weeks after Hurricane Milton, he told the Observer he expects equal numbers of residents leaving versus staying.
In the months since, his assessment remains the same.
“Of the 200 houses here, roughly half had been built in the last 20 years and had limited damage,” said Goglia, who is staying on St. Armands. “It’s only the other half of the houses, generally the interior houses, that were damaged the worst by the storms. Many people are just trying to figure out how to stay.”
