LONGBOAT KEY, Fla. — Mountains of sand still line parts of Gulf Drive on Longboat Key as residents continue to clean up left behind by Hurricane Helene.
Access to Longboat Key is open to all, but only from the south. Local traffic on Bradenton Beach remained closed, leaving the Longboat Pass Bridge still closed.
In the Whitney Beach condo community on the north side of the island, in Manatee County, residents with units on the ground floor lost everything.
“It’s a shocker when you walk in and you think you can salvage some things and everything was just, with two feet of water in the unit, everything got wet,” Tom Jassoi.
Jassoi was at his second home in Parrish, where his boat fell off his dock during the storm. He has owned his beach condo for 30 years, at times living in it full-time.
“We took everything to the curb yesterday. Just a couple pieces left.”
But he plans to rebuild.
“Like I say, ‘No one died so it can all be fixed,” he said.
Further south on Longboat Key, another longtime resident sat inside his home, which was surrounded by sand after Helene’s surge.
“I’ve been spending years building these these berms here, these dunes, and they are all gone and you can see where they went,” Thomas Ruffino said.
Ruffino has lived in his beachfront home for the last three decades. Like others, he ignored evacuation orders. During the storm, he had to fix a broken and work hard to keep the sand and water out.
“I spent my who life eliminating fear, but this pushed it.”
But as he looked at his view of the water on Tuesday, he commented at the view: “Look at it, it’s gorgeous even after the storm.”
“The stuff is not important. It’s a quality of life, living a good life and doing the right thing.”
“Honestly, my heart sank"
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