September 28, 2024 | Anna Maria Island, Community News, Featured

Hurricane recovery underway on Anna Maria Island

Front-end loaders will play a key role in the recovery efforts.

BRADENTON BEACH – In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the recovery and restoration efforts on Anna Maria Island have begun.

On Friday, return access to the Island was limited to first responders and recovery personnel.

Saturday morning, the Holmes Beach Police Department shared the following return-related information: “The chief and mayor have met and the mayor has asked to let residents and business owners to be allowed to enter the city to start their cleanup efforts. Starting at 10 a.m., property owners and business owners of Holmes Beach and the city of Anna Maria will be allowed to come onto the Island to assess their damages. You must have a reentry tag. There is still no power or water and the roads still have standing water and debris. Drive slowly and safely.

“You can only access the Island by Manatee Avenue. The roads in Bradenton Beach are still impassable. There will be barricades at the city line of Holmes Beach/Bradenton Beach so no one can enter Bradenton Beach through Holmes Beach. Once you enter Holmes Beach, you will be handed a flyer with instructions on where to place your trash and debris,” the statement says.

When contacted by phone at 10:00 Saturday morning, Holmes Beach Police Chief Bill Tokajer said he and Mayor Judy Titsworth were at the entrance to the city handing out information sheets to returning motorists.

By noon, there was a 90-minute wait along Manatee Avenue to enter Holmes Beach.

Access to Bradenton Beach via the Cortez Bridge and the Longboat Pass Bridge remains restricted to essential personnel only. Some residents and business owners managed to access the Island by boat before the bridge access restrictions were partially lifted.

As of Saturday morning, there was no water and electricity service on the Island and cell service remained hit-and-miss. The loss of water service was a decision made by Manatee County officials to protect the county’s water and sewage system prior to the storm surge inundating the Island. Hurricane Helene inflicted the loss of electricity and cell service. The water damage to homes, businesses, automobiles and personal belongings is expected to be immense, painful and, in some cases, life-altering.

Bradenton Beach

Friday morning Bradenton Beach Police Chief John Cosby allowed The Sun to take a self-guided tour of the damage sustained within walking distance of the Cortez Bridge. Due to the bridge access restrictions, The Sun could not get to Holmes Beach or Anna Maria.

Cosby also serves as the city’s emergency operations manager and public works director. At 8 a.m., he stood at the sand-covered intersection of Cortez Road and Gulf Drive with limited cell phone service trying to communicate with city, county and state personnel as the locally unprecedented damage assessment, recovery and restoration efforts ensued.

“Gulf Drive is under about three feet of sand for the entire length of the city,” he said. “The road underneath the sand has buckled so there are areas where there is no road. We also have sinkholes. The dunes and the beach are gone. We have structural damage to properties, houses that shifted on their foundations, and a lot of flooding. The pier is fine. There’s a boat stuck under the floating dock and finger docks are messed up.”

Cosby’s not aware of any hurricane-related fatalities or serious injuries.

As the morning unfolded, heavy equipment operators and other recovery personnel began arriving, staging and taking action at the west end of the Cortez Bridge. At 10:30 a.m., the operator of a front-end loader began digging down into the Gulf Drive/Cortez Road intersection to determine how much sand sat atop Gulf Drive.

When contacted by phone later in the day, Cosby noted the entire stretch of Gulf Drive in Bradenton Beach is a state road (SR 789) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has to clear the sand and construct a temporary road before motorists are allowed to return. Cosby stressed the need for residents and business owners to remain patient, as difficult as that is.

“No one is getting out here. The people that are here didn’t evacuate,” he said. “I’ve got about 60 pieces of FDOT equipment moving sand off Gulf Drive. I cannot have people getting in their way. Somebody is going to get hit. I also have businesses and homes that are not secure. I cannot have people wandering around and pillaging because there are no doors and windows. This is not a sightseeing tour and people need to understand that. DOT told me they would be working all weekend but it could take them at a least a week to get all this sand out of here and then they have to lay down a temporary road. Then I’ve got to get my contractor in here to get all the sand off our roads. Nobody’s driving around this city until we have the sand off every road.”

South of the Cortez Bridge the damage is visible in all directions, with the structures along Gulf Drive appearing to be the hardest hit. Two old ground-level homes and a small two-story duplex near the Gulf Drive/Cortez Road intersection are badly damaged.

The garage at another nearby ground-level home collapsed and the metal roof sits atop a pile of rubble next to the house that’s still standing. A displaced storage shed sat on the sand-covered road near the BeachHouse restaurant.

The Anna Maria Island Moose Lodge sustained major damage including missing waterfront windows and interior furnishings left in haphazard piles by the incoming and outgoing floodwaters and the sand intrusion.

The front doors at Oma’s Pizza are open and askew with the glass missing. The restaurant’s side door is gone and uprooted furniture is piled up inside.

Similar damage occurred at Wilder’s Pizza, the Island Scoops ice cream shop and the One Stop Shell Shop along the 100 block of Gulf Drive North.

Sand was piled up against the front doors of city hall with possible water damage inside. A city-owned work truck sat in a water-filled hole in front of the public works building as Building Official Darin Cushing walked the area conducting door-to-door assessments of the structural damage visible from outside.

Church Avenue was partially flooded with sand piled above the water in some areas. The mobile homes in the Pines Trailer Park appeared to be mostly undamaged on the outside, but the water damage inside is expected to be significant. Pines resident Joe Klingler stayed during the storm and watched the floodwaters inside his mobile home and along Bridge Street rise to approximately four feet.

The Bradenton Beach Pier was littered with toppled benches and debris but appears in good condition. A cabin cruiser that broke free during the hurricane lodged under the floating dock and most of the finger docks are sitting at angles, rather than 90 degrees, to the floating dock they’re connected to.

Aside from the unknown flood damage inside, the bars, restaurants and retail shops along Bridge Street appear to be structurally intact; and only one of the city’s recently-planted coconut palm trees toppled over.

North of Gulf Drive, a gulf-front window at the Wicked Cantina is smashed, the interior contents are jostled about and the elevated outdoor deck appears to be at ground level because of all the relocated sand.

Across the street, the Gulf Drive Café also suffered hurricane damage.

Anna Maria

When evaluating the city’s recent response to Tropical Storm Debby, Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy said the city would begin utilizing Facebook to provide real-time information before, during and after the next major storm. He made good on that promise.

Friday afternoon, city staff posted the following Facebook message: “The city of Anna Maria has declared a curfew from sunset to sunrise. All people must remain off street during those hours until further notice. The purpose of this action is to prevent looting during the time when there is no electricity and no cellular service.”

The curfew imposed via Murphy’s emergency powers will remain in place until further notice.

Earlier that day, the city posted this message: “At this time, the Island is without power and water. First-in teams are present doing damage and safety assessments. When it is safe to return, reentry tags will be required to gain access.”

When returning to Anna Maria, motorists will encounter a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office checkpoint at the entrance to the city, near CrossPointe Fellowship Church, and be required to present a reentry tag or some other proof of residence or business interest to enter the city. The checkpoint is meant to discourage unwelcome sightseers.

Murphy and his wife, Barb, evacuated their home before the storm but he returned Friday morning to assess the damage and lead the city’s recovery efforts. Speaking by phone Friday afternoon, Murphy said Hurricane Helene produced very little structural damage but significant flood damage. He was told the storm surge was approximately 6 feet high at high tide late Thursday evening and early Friday morning.

“We’ve still got some stuff that’s underwater. The north end, from the Rod & Reel Pier around North Shore is in some serious trouble. I left that area an hour and half ago and I still couldn’t get back in there. It’s not good,” Murphy said.

“Almost every home, except the new and higher ones, likely had some water intrusion,” Murphy said. “The homes along South Bay took on two to three feet of water, some maybe more, from Pine Avenue to Galati’s. Downstairs at my home, my wife’s car went underwater and is destroyed.”

Murphy said the Waterfront and Sandbar restaurants appear to have sustained significant water damage and the privately-owned Rod & Reel Pier is missing some planks.

“I guess we’re in better shape than the other two cities,” Murphy said. “Our roads that run along the Gulf, and even the ones a block from the Gulf, took on a lot of sand but our contractors and staff got the debris and sand pretty much cleaned up,” Murphy said.

Regarding the city’s main business district, Murphy said, “Pine Avenue’s in good shape. We got it cleared early this morning. In our city annex, we had six inches of water but not extensive damage. Most of the businesses, residences and the historical museum on Pine Avenue had water intrusion on the ground floor.”

Murphy said the City Pier weathered the storm but there’s some damage to the pier’s Gulf Island Ferry landing area and there was some water intrusion into the city-owned spaces leased to the City Pier Grill and the Mote Marine Science Education & Outreach Center.

Murphy is not aware of any storm-related injuries or fatalities.