DANA SHORES, Fla — For many Tampa Bay residents, it’s been nearly a month straight of cleanup— first, there was Hurricane Helene then came Hurricane Milton.
On Sunday, some of those homeowners in the Dana Shores neighborhood saw the first glimmer of hope that maybe they can finally begin to move on.
Residents said they’ve never been so happy to hear the sounds of excavators and dump trucks.
“Little bits of hope when the guys finally show up and start hauling this stuff away which has been sitting here for almost three weeks— you see little changes,” said Casey Lennox.
House after house, everyone’s belongings have been piled up on their front lawns from doors to mattresses to furniture to kitchen sinks— all of it destroyed.
Casey and Andrew Lennox have lived in this neighborhood since 2016. They said it’s hard to believe just 10 inches of water inside their home could cause so much damage, but that’s what happened during Helene.
“Anything that’s even close to the water as far as appliances, furniture, all of that is intruded and all of that has to be thrown out, so pretty much a total loss of everything inside,” Andrew Lennox said.
Just when they were ready to start over, Hurricane Milton came barreling through.
“The good part about that is so much damage was already done there was less for Milton to do but again the stress level takes a toll,” Andrew Lennox said.
Now, this couple just wants the visible memories from both these storms to be taken away, which is exactly what happened Sunday.
Getting all this stuff out off the street and all of the reminders of everything that was ruined, I think this is going a long way towards everybody in the community feeling like they can really move on.
People across the Tampa Bay area are counting down the minutes until power is turned back on. TECO says that by Tuesday, 75% of customers should have power back on.
