Business returning to Treasure Island half a year after Hurricane Helene's destruction

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson reported live from Treasure Island in Florida, where rebuilding is underway as tourists return months after Helene wrecked hotels and critical businesses across the area.

Transcript

00:00Roughly 30% of the businesses along the barrier islands in the Tampa-St. Pete area of Florida

00:06remain closed or only partially open six months after Helene decimated parts of those islands.

00:13Hundreds of residents are still also waiting to get back into their homes that were wiped

00:17out from the hurricane that never got more than 75 to 100 miles off of Tampa's coast.

00:22AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson joins us live from a Treasure Island landmark with more.

00:29Hey there, Jeff. Yeah, you know, it's been six months to the day as we know, and as you mentioned,

00:36this hurricane really never even got that close to the Tampa-St. Pete area, but still managed to

00:42just cripple this area of western central Florida. Over my shoulder is the historic hotel called

00:48Thunderbird Beach Resort. It's been here for almost 70 years and has weathered many hurricanes

00:54and storms, but this one, Helene in particular, proved to be too much for this hotel to withstand.

01:01Unfortunately, the building codes in some of these older hotels are not up to par, and this one was

01:07not able to stay open. And there is good news on the horizon for this hotel. It is expected to be

01:13completely torn down and rebuilt, but it will be built to the safest building codes in the country,

01:18which is right here in the state of Florida. So hopefully they will be able to weather many

01:23future storms as we get into the next several years and decades. But the storm surge here,

01:31by the way, was about seven feet of water and sand, and that's why all of the first floors

01:36of these buildings and homes were destroyed. If we look at some of the video we shot in Pinellas

01:41County earlier today, a lot of the businesses and even the locals have been struggling to try and

01:46get their stride after Helene moved into this area. One of the main problems is that this is a

01:52huge tourism industry, and a lot of people come here for snowbirds for this time of the year and

01:58stay here six months out of the year. Well, unfortunately, a lot of their homes were either

02:02destroyed or are unlivable, so they are not here. And some of the tourists have also been a little

02:08gun-shy to come back as well, but we're starting to see some of that filter back in. We've talked

02:13to a lot of people here the last couple of days. We do hear that there are spring breakers, a lot

02:17of them here trying to put some money back into this area. Again, this was shut down for several

02:23months, and as you mentioned, there's still about 30 percent of the businesses here that are still

02:28not fully functional, but are trying to get back on their feet. When you drive around this area,

02:33it doesn't take too much to actually find homes that have either been completely destroyed

02:37or have already been demolished and are awaiting a rebuild. That's one of the big problems, trying

02:42to get those building codes and get everything, all the red tape in order so folks can actually

02:46rebuild. So, that's been one of the big problems, but folks are determined to build stronger and

02:51better than ever. Now, joining me right now is John. I'm going to mess it up, John. Jason.

02:58Jason Bezos. I knew I was going to mess it up, you guys. I'm so sorry.

03:04Jason is here, and we're going to talk about, you are the public information officer for Treasure

03:09Island. Talk to me a little bit about how things have been going here. We've talked before.

03:13Are you feeling encouraged this spring break? Oh, yes. We're seeing a lot of people out on

03:16our beaches the last two weeks. Especially, we've seen a lot of people. We had a big event about

03:21three or four weeks ago to bring people back to the beach that we did in conjunction with our

03:25Visit St. Pete Clearwater, and that brought out big crowds here. And so, our businesses are now,

03:29many of them are open. As you already talked about, some of the hotels are still closed and still

03:33rebuilding, and some of these businesses are still rebuilding. But so far, we've seen a lot of people

03:37come out, and they're enjoying their time here, and they're making the best of it because you can

03:40come here, and then you can go right over to St. Pete Beach, Madeira Beach, Downtown St. Pete.

03:44But right now, we're seeing a good outcome this spring break so far. How was this for you,

03:50you know, six months ago? Were you anticipating the night before

03:53a hulling hit? Were you anticipating what this area saw, or did it even surprise you?

03:58We are working with our emergency manager. We were talking about the impacts that could possibly

04:03happen. We weren't expecting as much of a storm surge as we got, and so it was shocking to see,

04:07especially the day of the storm. It was about 2, 3 p.m. There were still people out on our beach.

04:13It was sunny like it is now, and it seemed like maybe this wasn't, you know, nothing was going

04:16to happen to us. And then about four o'clock, I believe it was, the bottom just fell out,

04:20and the water just started coming up. We posted many videos of our fire department,

04:24police department, showing the water just coming over the wall, coming over the streets, and just

04:29came in as quickly as possible, and that's when we had to evacuate the island and get to our EOC.

04:33And so it was shocking to see how much water actually came on, and when you came back

04:37right after the storm, I was with our fire chief. When we came back right after the storm

04:41and the devastation you saw and how powerful water is, which is amazing. Yeah, but the one thing that

04:45we've all noticed is, especially after a big impact like this in an area that doesn't normally get it,

04:50the resiliency of the folks here has been incredible. Yeah, I mean, people came together,

04:55started rebuilding. We had some, you know, you have some hiccups as you rebuild because we got

04:58hit by two storms right after Hulleen. Milton came along and did its thing, and so it took some time

05:03to get, you know, permits going, and we got those going, and we got that worked out, and we got

05:07people rebuilding, and I think we're one of the better barrier, better cities on our coast here

05:12that's been rebuilding. And so we were one of the hardest hit, but we've come back stronger,

05:16and we're going to keep, continue to come back stronger. Awesome, thank you so much. All right,

05:19you guys, well, as you can tell, there is still a lot of work to do here in these barrier islands,

05:24but they are convinced and convicted to rebuild, and we look forward to seeing that process happen.

05:30For now, we are reporting live in Treasure Island. I'm Leslie Hudson, back to you.

05:34All right, thank you so much there, Leslie.

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