PENSACOLA BEACH — In the Santa Rosa Villa community, crumbled debris, caution tape, and a wall-less home could be seen driving on the east end of Pensacola Beach Sunday afternoon.

 

Neighbors said the owner was not there Friday evening when wind gusts hit up to 95 mph during Hurricane Isaias. “They took the brunt of it. It’s bad over here. It’s bad,” west end resident Frank Saunders said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. The force, the sheer mother nature, anger. They hit those walls,” Santa Rosa Villa resident Haris Alibašic said. Meanwhile, surrounding homes remained barely touched. “It’s interesting because you can see that some units have been heavily damaged and the rest of them have not,” Alibašic said. “I just had a fence blown around. It’s due for replacement, so it’s kind of good timing.”

 

Frank Saunders, who lives about 8 miles away on the west end, said his area saw little to no damage.

“From all the way on the west end by the entrance to Fort Pickens, to here. It just appeared that the damage got worse the further to the east that we got,” Saunders said.

Saunders said that did not surprise him.

“It was like this during Hurricane Sally too. It always seems that the the east end of the beach gets more damage than the west end,” Saunders said. “They’re going to have quite a few days, I’m guessing without power, and they can use all the help they can get.”

Despite the destruction, residents noted feeling thankful for their safety amidst the recovery effort.

“Overall, I think there’s going to be a lot of work by everyone to fix these buildings, and I was very lucky and I’m blessed that way,” Alibašic said.