HOMOSASSA, Fla. — Hurricane Helene caused storm surge of up to 10 feet in some parts of Citrus County, devastating many of the communities close to the Gulf.
In Homosassa, residents are beginning the long process of cleaning up, trying to get back to normal.
Just about everywhere you look west of Highway 19, there are piles of debris dragged out of homes.
The shock is now wearing off as people are working to repair the massive damage from Hurricane Helene.
Last week, Mother Nature unleashed a wall of water on the Nature Coast as Hurricane Helene arrived.
"It's just stuff"
At ground level, mattresses, couches, soaked sheetrock, and piles of once-treasured belongings show the depths of devastation.
We met Wade Manis while he was getting ice.
"We have a lot of moving parts right now with pods, dumpsters getting drywall," Manis said.
He took us to his home on Deepwater Point in the Riverhaven Community.
Three feet of water filled his home, destroying nearly everything at ground level.
"At the end of the day it’s just stuff, right? We’ve got people helping us and we’re still alive," Manis said.
A lucky escape
Two houses down, Jerry Bass was lucky to escape with his life.
"I fell asleep and I had a Ring camera right there," Bass said.
At around 3 a.m., as she watched floodwaters rise from the place where she evacuated, Jerry's wife Eve began shouting at Jerry through the Ring camera's speaker.
"I heard something. Jerry Jerry wake up, wake up," he said.
Jerry climbed out a window because his doors were sealed from the outside.
"I walked to the road, got in the middle of the road and then walked to the house," he said.
Bass managed to get to a neighbor's home on higher ground.
"Right when I got to the house, I felt something alive get on my leg and then I jumped," he said.
Pictures he took show the mess inside his home.
Jerry says he’ll never ignore an evacuation warning again.
"If it hadn’t been for my wife, it’d have been bad,"" he said. "It kicked my butt."
Kevin Flaherty and his wife Merry spent the day at the Spin City Laundry cleaning mud out of their clothes.
"Jeans and more jeans,"Merry said.
"Everything’s soaked in mud it’s a mess," Kevin Flaherty said.
Their mobile home was filled with two feet of water and is now covered in muck.
Cabinets, flooring, and furniture will all have to be replaced, and they don’t have flood insurance.
"Fortunately, we got out of there in time. Car is fine. Staying in a hotel for the last five nights. It’s going to be a lot of work," Kevin said.
For some of the people we’ve talked to, this will be the third time they’ve had to make storm repairs in the past year, and a few say they are considering moving away.
The massive piles of debris littering communities across the Bay Area are not likely to end soon. We went to Town n Country, Baycrest, and Dana Shores to see how those areas are coming together.
