Florida communities hit by 3 hurricanes in 13 months grapple with how and whether to rebuild
Laurie Lilliott stands amid the wreckage of her home Friday in Dekle Beach, Fla., after Hurricane Helene. “I don’t know if anybody’s ever experienced this in the history of hurricanes.” For the third time in 13 months, this windswept stretch of Florida’s Big Bend took a direct hit from a hurricane — a 1-2-3 punch to a 50-mile sliver of the state’s more than 8,400 miles of coastline, first by Idalia, then Cate-gory 1 Hurricane Debby two months ago, and now Helene. Hiers, who sits on Horseshoe Beach’s town council, said words like “unbelievable” are beginning to lose their meaning. “They lost everything with Idalia and they were told, ‘Here, you can have a loan.’ I mean, where’s our tax money going then?” England’s sister, Lorraine Davis, got a letter in the mail just days before Helene hit declaring that her insurance company was dropping her, with no explanation other than her home “fails to meet underwriting”. “We just don’t even know how to recover at this point.” Hiers said she and her husband will probably buy an RV and park it where their home once stood.
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