‘You never know.’ Bradenton residents evacuate, prepare for Hurricane Helene’s impact

Manatee County prepared for the impacts of Hurricane Helene on Wednesday, which is forecast to barrel past Florida’s Gulf Coast as a major storm over the next 24 hours.

For the Bradenton area, expected impacts include 5 to 8 feet of storm surge, tropical storm force winds of up to 73 mph and up to 6 inches of rain, according to the National Hurricane Center’s latest forecast.

The storm’s predicted path held steady Wednesday as it entered the Gulf and grew in size and speed. Forecasters predict landfall on Thursday evening in Florida’s Big Bend region as a massive Category 4 hurricane.

Emergency officials and forecasters warn that the storm’s effects will be felt far outside of the forecast cone with a tropical wind field of 345 miles wide and growing.

Manatee County officials issued emergency evacuation orders for residents in low-lying coastal areas and mobile homes and urged locals to watch the storm closely.

Bradenton residents evacuate

As Hurricane Helene approaches, people around Bradenton are heeding Manatee County’s evacuation orders.

Donna Puro has lived in the Trailer Estates Mobile Home Park near Sarasota Bay for around 40 years. In the past, she’s evacuated for strong hurricanes, including Irma and Ian. Now she’s evacuating once again for the latest storm to threaten Florida with wind, rain and storm surge.

Puro, 77, spent Wednesday morning preparing her mobile home alongside her daughter, Denise, and their friend, George Savinon. They grabbed sandbags, took items off the walls to keep them from becoming debris and moved the grill to a secure location.

But Puro isn’t planning on staying at her house, which is in a mandatory evacuation zone. Instead, she’s going to a nearby Hyatt hotel, which she said she booked three days ago out of precaution, well in advance of the storm officially forming into a tropical storm or a hurricane.

Her friend called that a smart move.

“You can replace a trailer, but you can’t replace your life,” Savinon said.

Still, Puro said she believes things are going to be OK.

“I think we’re going to be safe,” Puro said. “Compared to the other ones, this one doesn’t seem as close.”

Puro wasn’t the only one evacuating out ahead of the storm. At least 30 people and 5 pets had already evacuated to Electa Arcotte Lee Middle, one of Manatee County’s two emergency shelters, as of Wednesday afternoon.

Several assisted living facilities around town also loaded residents onto buses for evacuation.

Rick Zientek, 71, who has lived at Trailer Estates for five years, is also evacuating with a pet. He and his 16-year-old dog, Lucky, are headed to an Airbnb in Fort Pierce to ride out the storm.

He said his area has seen flooding in the past, with water coming up over the seawalls and a sewer manhole that occasionally gushes. For Zientek, water is his main worry when it comes to Helene.

“I’m more concerned about the storm surge than anything else, because yeah we’re going to get some wind and rain, but I’m more concerned with that with the canal right there,” Zientek said.

Flooding remains a concern in Manatee

Charlie Strickland, 25, and his parents experienced the serious flooding threat that a hurricane brings just over a month ago during Hurricane Debby.

The family, which lives down the street from the Lake Manatee Dam off of Rye Road, lives in one of the many properties that experienced severe flooding after Debby’s historic rainfall.

Strickland said they had about a foot of water on the property after that storm.

“Walking out of the house that morning, it looked like I was living on a ship,” Strickland said.

Thankfully none of the water managed to get into the house, but he added that it nearly flooded the garage. Strickland, who has lived in that house for 11 years, said he’s never seen that kind of flooding before.

“It was really bad,” Strickland said.

With Helene approaching, Strickland said flooding is once again a concern. While he says they’ve done their best to secure items that could turn into flying debris and have elevated as much as they can to prevent water damage, he doesn’t know if it will be enough.

“What happened with the last hurricane definitely makes you a little nervous for sure. You just don’t know. You never know, I guess,” Strickland said. “They’re saying that we got more rain last time than we’ve ever really gotten before. So that makes me feel a little better. But you know, it’s hard to say for sure what’s going to happen,” Strickland said.

This story was originally published September 25, 2024 at 6:12 PM.