Standing on a thick layer of sand, Adam Robinson’s head nearly reached the ceiling of his beachfront condo in Siesta Key — ground zero for Hurricane Milton.

The storm had dumped much of the beach into the living room and rearranged the furniture. The leather recliner was jammed between the wall and the kitchen counter by the front door. A piece of what used to be a wooden walkway to the beach lay in his living room.

This is what a double whammy of major hurricanes did to this stretch of Florida’s Gulf Coast renowned for its fine white beach sand and gorgeous Gulf of Mexico views. Two weeks before Milton made landfall on this barrier island off Sarasota late Wednesday night, Hurricane Helene had churned some 100 miles offshore on its way to a landfall far to the north in the Big Bend. But Helene still pushed a wall of that normally tranquil gulf over a large swath of the coast, producing record surge levels in Tampa and areas to the north. But even here, 60 miles south of Tampa Bay, Helene wrecked more than just 40 first-floor units at this complex, Fisherman’s Cove. It broke off pieces of foundation like a cookie crumbling and deposited a hefty coral rock into Robinson’s wrecked lanai. Milton appears to have reclaimed the coral, he said, but it tossed a few palm trees into other’s homes. “I don’t know how this one did less damage than Helene even though that storm was so far away,” said Robinson, as his dog Maggie maneuvered through the mess.

Storm surge and wind from hurricanes Helene and Milton caused beach erosion and damaged condos at Fisherman’s Cove beach front condominium rentals on Siesta Key, Florida on Thursday, October 10, 2024.

Before Helene and Milton, Siesta Key was a beautiful place where the cares seem few. In 2023, Condé Nast Traveler named it one of the “10 Best Beach Towns on the East Coast.” The beachfront is lined with expensive homes and condos and hotels for comfortable but less affluent. Now, after two weeks of back-to-back batterings, residents are coming back to stripped trees, flooded streets lined with scattered trash and debris, some of it already piled up after Helene. There are varying degrees of property damage, the heaviest appearing to be worse in places with beachfront views.

 

It appeared to be a one-two punch of water, then wind. Helene’s surge, redrew the shoreline, burying cars in sand, swamping streets and destroying beachfront roads. Milton’s winds felled trees and flung them about, scattered debris piles and filled swimming pools with some much sand you can walk across them. “You could say Helene softened the target, and Milton finished the job,” said Joe Giba, a lifelong Sarasota native who was walking along a transformed Turtle Beach in Siesta Key during an idyllic sunset Thursday. Before Thursday, the sand stretched out for 100 yards beyond dunes behind Fisherman’s Cove. Now the surf reaches a rampart of once-buried rocks that are completely exposed just a few steps away from the damaged condos. Some couldn’t tell where Helene’s wrath ended and Milton’s began, but it didn’t matter. Even after disaster crashed into this paradise, some people said the intend to keep living here and rebuild.

 

“We’ll get it all fixed up, and it’ll be fine,” said Eric Lundquist, who’s lived in his beachfront home down the beach from Fisherman’s Cove for five years. The day after Milton made landfall just north of his home, with no electricity or running water, he’d returned with his family to reclaim home and defend against looters.

“I feel safe here,” he said. “I’ve got guns and a dog.”

For others, the last two weeks could be seen as a wake-up call for a coastline where the risks of catastrophe are rising in a warming world where hurricanes are stronger and wetter as the climate changes.

“This doesn’t seem like it’s a sustainable place,” said Sam Somogyi, who was born and raised in Sarasota. He and friend took a beach stroll among the damaged homes Thursday.

Lundquist and Robinson both had sunnier assessments — this is a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane season, and so they won’t have to worry about it again.

“We’re strong. I think we’ll come back from this,” said Robinson, who was born in Miami Beach and has lived in the Sarasota area for years. He’s staying at a home he has on the mainland.

He closed on this condo in November. Now, he said, all the first-floor units will be totally renovated. Higher value.