MIAMI — These days, Jody Griffis’ daily commute to his waterfront home in Cedar Island ends with him parked in front of what is now a mostly barren lot, the Gulf of Mexico softly lapping at the shore behind it.

Last week, Hurricane Helene swept away his 1986 Jim Walter stilt house and everything he and his wife of 24 years had in it. Graduation pictures and birth certificates — gone. One of his work shirts was found miles away. All that remains are pilings set on a concrete foundation, one with an American flag he attached after the winds died down.

“I find myself driving there because I feel I need to be there,” Griffis said. “I don’t know why. It’s an empty feeling being there.”

Helene began its deadly inland rampage through the southeastern U.S. here, in this sleepy swath of Florida’s Gulf coast where small communities are tucked away behind miles of long-leaf pine and cedar trees. But it certainly didn’t end there.

There is near-apocalyptic damage to the north, in places like Tennessee and North Carolina where floodwaters washed away whole communities and created a death toll that, at more than 190, is already rising to the ranks of one of the worst storms in U.S. history. With hundreds of people still unaccounted for, that number could rise.

To the south, the wealthier and more densely-packed metro area of Tampa Bay has seen tens of thousands of homes and properties inundated in what some have labeled the new storm of the century.

But here in the middle, where the strongest storm to hit the region in its history was also the third to come in 13 months, residents like Griffis worry that they are being forgotten. And that could make that already exhausting process of recovery take even longer. Especially here, where very few residents have the right kind of insurance to make them whole after 10-plus feet of storm surge flooded their homes.

Record storm surge

Helene, bigger than 90% of other Gulf storms, swept its long arm across the Gulf and drove that water inland. Days before landfall, experts warned that water was the biggest threat.

In Griffis’ longtime home of Cedar Island, in the Big Bend region, that was certainly the case.

The National Hurricane Center predicted this region could see up to 20 feet of storm surge. While the official numbers aren’t all in yet, the tide gauge station at Cedar Key 80 miles to the south recorded about 9 feet of storm surge, nearly three feet above the previous record set one year earlier during Hurricane Idalia.

It snapped trees in half, blew boats inland and unmoored homes from their foundations. Or, in the case of the handful of oceanfront homes like Griffis’, ripped them from their pilings. Storm chasers in town for the excitement of 130 mph winds captured footage of homes and sheds simply floating away.

Entire communities, some just recovering from Idalia’s heavy blow the year before, are now leveled.

“When it comes to storm surge at that height it’s really hard to protect against it. The best thing you can do is evacuate,” said Chris Rodriguez, a flood mitigation specialist with floodproofing.com. “It’s just way too dangerous.”

Storm surge appears to be the culprit for much of the damage up and down Florida’s west coast. It broke records hundreds of miles from the center of the storm, especially in the hard-hit Tampa Bay area, which saw about seven feet of surge.

But the worst of it was near landfall in Taylor County, where Helene’s raging Category 4 eyewall crashed ashore near Keaton Beach.

FEMA and the Red Cross are in town, and state resources have been flowing for days. But media attention is more limited.

Griffis told the Herald in a phone interview that he was grateful to see Gov. Ron DeSantis come to the area a few days after the storm, but when he turns on the TV at the apartment where he is temporarily staying near Steinhatchee, he says all he sees are images of flooding and damage in the Tampa Bay region and Cedar Key.

While acknowledging the larger scope of damage and loss of life to more populated areas of Florida and the country, he expressed frustration over the lack of attention being paid to the hamlets and fishing villages along the Nature Coast that became ground zero for Helene’s wrath.

“I’m seeing all this footage from Tampa and Cedar Key,” he said. “Where are you guys? You’re missing the boat.”

It’s a familiar tale for this rural region just to the north of Cedar Key, a quiet fishing haven and one of the rare spots in Florida where affordable waterfront lots are still a reality.

Most the storm-savvy residents knew from experience to flee the coastal area of Taylor County. Its population of just about 21,000 people countywide evacuated well before the storm, keeping the death toll to a minimum. Meanwhile, 11 of the 13 official Florida deaths recorded in Helene so far from the Tampa Bay area, which was roughly 100 miles west of Helene’s strongest core. In Hurricane Idalia last year, the community’s successful evacuation also kept the death toll to zero direct fatalities for the region.

There were also, simply, fewer homes to destroy.

Taylor County, where the eye came ashore, has a little over 11,000 homes, according to the Census. In Tampa’s Pinellas County alone, at least 28,000 homes were affected by flooding in some way, including about 16,800 with major damage, according to the county’s dashboard.

But while the thousands of houses with seven feet of water in them in Tampa Bay may be soggy — even irreparably so — at least they’re still there.

Griffis said his neighborhood is missing 1 in 10 homes, and the coastline is studded with lots with only piers left.

Insurance woes

Griffis’ wife has been on the phone for hours each day with their insurance company since the storm. They hope for the best for themselves and so many of their neighbors. They don’t intend to leave the area.

“I want to build back taller. it will be stronger,” Griffis said. “I will be ready the next time she comes to town.”

Unfortunately, recovery will likely be a slow process for the Big Bend region. As many unhappy residents may soon discover, the damage from Hurricane Helene’s storm surge is classified as flood damage, which is not covered by standard home and hurricane insurance, despite how much premiums have skyrocketed in recent years.

Flood damage is specifically covered by flood insurance, the vast majority of which is covered by the federal government through the National Flood Insurance Program. And this corner of Florida has very, very few homes insured.

Griffis said he skipped flood insurance on his waterfront property because of the extremely high annual cost — $22,000. He’s not the only one.

As of August 31, the federal government lists just 538 flood insurance policies for Taylor County. That’s about 5% of the housing units in the county.

Without flood insurance, government cash could flow slower and less heartily to the homeowners who need it.

“The unfortunate situation of these storms is it’s going to take state, county or federal involvement,” said Scott Popilek, Atlantic Region Leader at Risk Strategies, a consultant company that deals with insurance and weather risks. “There are some other government programs people can access, but nowhere near to meet the needs of the population we’re talking about.”

Government help is available in some cases, but it isn’t a quick process. Hurricane Michael hit this region as a Category 5 in 2018, and the state launched a program to help low and moderate-income residents repair or replace their homes in 2021.

Fixing up 979 homes took until July 2023.

A more substantial storm pushes that timeline back even further. After Hurricane Irma hit in 2017, with winds that swept much of the state, more than 8,000 Floridians applied for state help rebuilding their homes. As of this June — seven years later — the state has completed just over 3,500 projects.

Not to mention that rebuilding any of the truly destroyed homes means building to the newer, safer building code that Florida improves every three years.

That means elevation as much as 20 feet off the ground, a costly endeavor, but one designed to help homes and buildings survive the next time a hurricane flings a two-story building worth of the Gulf water onto land.

However, Popilek noted, rebuilding to that standard could cost more than what the homes in the area were insured for in the first place.

“If it costs $500,000 to rebuild a new one but only $250,000 is covered by insurance originally — that’s the challenge,” he said.

He worries that such expensive rebuilding could be painful for a community where incomes are generally lower, despite the proven fact that better development saves lives during extreme storms like Helene.

“The challenge is if you raise those requirements it raises the cost. Are you in essence now creating an environment where you stall development and increase in tax base because fewer people can afford a home?” he said.

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