None of us on Anna Maria Island born since the storm of 1921 have ever been through anything like the hurricanes of 2024, Helene and Milton, including building officials.
We had our hurricane plans in place, such as they were, but found ourselves overwhelmed and struggling to meet our most minimal survival needs, with some obligations taking a back seat to simply finding a place to eat and spend the night.
Bradenton Beach was by far the hardest-hit of Anna Maria Island’s three cities, so comparing what they did in Anna Maria and Holmes Beach is not fair to Bradenton Beach Building Official Darin Cushing.
He was faced with inspecting hundreds of buildings, some of which had floated down streets and fallen over sideways and collapsed with only the roof showing, while the worst damage to the north initially observed by reporters after Hurricane Helene was a house fire.
With little help in the early days after both hurricanes hit the Island, he was undoubtedly overwhelmed like the rest of us, but showed up to a hazardous workplace where buildings threatened to collapse and vehicles took on nails in their tires and got stuck in sand dunes that had been transferred from the beach to the neighborhoods.
In short, it was a disaster area.
It remains to be seen if Cushing made a mistake or was negligent in applying the statutory Native American exemption for chickee huts at the Drift-In on Bridge Street, which the city has suspended him for.
Any shortcomings in the application of the statute could potentially be reversed, such as taking out plumbing and electric and clearing the easement.
Cushing has suggested in Facebook posts that there is far more to it than that, and there usually is. The Tuesday, Jan. 28 city commission meeting at 9 a.m. at city hall may shed more light on the issue.
But at minimum, we expect the city to presume Cushing’s innocence and give him an opportunity to clear his name in a fair and impartial hearing before making a rush to judgment and terminating his employment.
And we thank him for his service during this difficult time.
