As a child, I grew up on Sarasota’s barrier islands during the 70s and 80s. From all my hurricane experiences of the last 40 years, Hurricane Helene was a very different type of storm than we’ve ever experienced.
There are three facets to a hurricane storm: wind, rain, and storm surge
- WIND. In a wind event, there are tremendous winds that have the potential of knocking down houses, taking off roofs, knocking down beautiful old trees. This was not that event. In this case, we had wind gusts that were in the upper 70 mph and steady winds that were within tropical storm strength of 30-50 mph. There is not wind destruction. There’s not even a little bit of destruction. Everything is very much intact from this standpoint.
- RAIN. In a rain event, you get tons of rain as we’ve seen across the country throughout this storm season, and you have great flooding. We did not have that either. We had a few inches of rain, which is probably equivalent to a strong late afternoon thunderstorm or two strung together.
- STORM SURGE. What was significant about this storm was a storm surge, which I’m going to describe as a very, very high, high tide. I personally have never seen this type of impact in our area. We’re at sea level here right on Lido Beach. Structures that were built right on (or just above) sea level had water in their properties because the tide came up much higher than usual and breached the entries. Many properties were unaffected. However, properties that were in low elevation areas had water come in as the tide surged in. The water then surged back out when the tide retreated. The areas that were in its path were left with wet items — whether that was drywall, appliances, mattresses, carpets, etc. While I don’t want to diminish the damage that storm surge causes and the personal/financial hardship it can inflict, I am trying to distinguish it from the other aspects of Hurricane damage.
The key point for those affected on our barrier islands here in Sarasota is that there’s a very straightforward path on remediating and restoring this type of damage. People don’t have to rebuild. They have to take out the things that are wet, and put new things in and move on with their lives. Those clients of ours that have been affected have rolled up their sleeves and are doing the remediation so that they can get back into their homes
If you’re a Seller, there are new disclosure requirements about selling in Florida and in light of the storm, I think it’s super critical that you’re very transparent as you go through that process.
And for Buyers, there are extreme subtleties about living here in Sarasota, whether it’s on the barrier islands called Keys or on the mainland. In order for you to get the best advice and go forth in these real estate transactions, I encourage you to give me a call. When making such a major financial and lifestyle investment you need to protect your interests now more than ever with an experienced real estate professional who’s lived here for decades and that understands the lifestyle and our real estate market.
For more questions on the storm or how to move forward with your real estate interests, don’t hesitate to give me a call Lee @ 941.587.0740
