Current:Home > MyHorseshoe Beach hell: Idalia's wrath leaves tiny Florida town's homes, history in ruins -InfinityFinance
Horseshoe Beach hell: Idalia's wrath leaves tiny Florida town's homes, history in ruins
View
Date:2025-04-18 01:25:02
HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. − Herman “Pork Chop” Neeley thought he could hunker down in his seaside home and make it through Hurricane Idalia. Then he saw the storm surge.
Neeley, 78, heard his house rattling just after dawn Wednesday morning. He had just begun to sense the force of the hurricane smashing through Florida's Big Bend area and his hometown of Horseshoe Beach, population 169 as of the 2010 census.
He opened his front door and saw the warm Gulf of Mexico water rushing toward him. By the time he got his socks and boots on, it was up to his knees.
“I told myself ‘It’s time for you to go now,’” he said. “'Get the hell out of Dodge.'”
Neeley was one of more than a dozen Horseshoe Beach locals whose homes were totaled − in his case, a seafoam green rancher his father built in 1962.
He and others who spoke to USA TODAY said they had never seen such a storm rip through their secluded town on the Gulf − not Hurricane Hermine in 2016, and not the great “no-name storm” in 1993.
“It was nothing you could imagine,” Neeley said after describing a narrow escape in his Chevy Silverado truck as the wind and storm surge toppled power lines. After the worst of it passed, he went back to find his house knocked off its blocks and the interior destroyed.
Many of his neighbors say homes that were still standing after Hurricane Hermine were destroyed by Idalia.
“Pretty much everything that’s left standing was already rebuilt,” said John Neal, who owns a landscaping business on Horseshoe Beach. “They’re not family homes that have been here for generations.”
He and his wife, Carla Neal, had to tell 10 of their friends that they had lost everything.
“It’s tough to call people and tell them their house is gone,” John Neal said. “It’s terrible, actually.”
The couple and their three kids, ages 7 to 14, helped clean up the hollowed building that, a day earlier, was a popular marina run by Dennis Buckley, a local landowner the pair call “Grampy B.”
The storm destroyed four houses Buckley owned and rented, as well as a marina and a hotel, the Angler's Inn. His only house still standing after the hurricane was the one he lives in with his wife just behind the marina.
The marina had a small pub attached to it, Jake’s Bar. It was named after a Labrador retriever that Buckley and his wife had to put down months before they reopened the shop, which had been closed for years.
On Thursday, antique soda machines, bicycles and rotary phones, which had decorated the marina, lie mangled with chunks of metal and tree limbs. Debris had been hurled hundreds of feet away.
In the muck, Carla Neal found her great-grandfather’s fishing pole that used to hang over the door of the shop.
“We need to keep this,” she said as she handed it to her 12-year-old son, Ethan. “There’s not much else here.”
Neeley, whose nickname "Pork Chop" comes from his plump childhood, said he knew his house was a total loss. But when he got back to see it, he was astounded at the damage.
“Look, see how it moved the freezer and the washer-dryer?” Neeley said, pointing to each item. “How’d it do that? It blew the walls out.”
The interior and exterior of the home was streaked with mud that leveled off in an almost straight line.
“It’s at least 5 feet high,” Neeley said, holding his hand straight across his chest, demonstrating the height of the surge. “I almost didn’t make it.”
On the white wall just beside the front door read a note scrawled in black magic marker: “SEPT. 1, 2016 Hurricane Hermine.” Next to it was a straight line across and an arrow pointing to it.
“See that?” Neeley said. “Now this one yesterday killed my house.”
Neeley makes his living installing roofs and fixing boats. He learned his way around a boat engine from his father, a commercial trout fisherman. Neeley, along with his seven siblings, grew up on the same street he still lives on.
“I know everybody and everybody knows me,” he said.
Neeley didn't hesitate when asked about his plans for the future: "I’m going to get me a trailer … get everything cleaned up. And then I’m going to start to build me a house.”
Just then, two men in a Red Cross van stopped in front of the house.
“You hungry?” one man said. “Want any food?”
“I’m all right,” Neeley said. “Got any beer or whiskey?”
Contact Christopher Cann by email at [email protected] or follow him on X @ChrisCannFL.
veryGood! (6)
Related
- John Galliano out at Maison Margiela, capping year of fashion designer musical chairs
- Ex-Philadelphia labor leader convicted of embezzling from union to pay for home renovations, meals
- Former Jacksonville Jaguars employee accused of stealing over $22 million to buy condo, cars and cryptocurrency
- Adults can now legally possess and grow marijuana in Ohio — but there’s nowhere to buy it
- Man can't find second winning lottery ticket, sues over $394 million jackpot, lawsuit says
- Mystery of a tomato missing in space for months has been solved, and a man exonerated
- 'Killers of the Flower Moon' director Martin Scorsese to receive David O. Selznick Award from Producers Guild
- Shots fired outside Jewish temple in upstate New York as Hanukkah begins, shooter’s motive unknown
- Highlights from Trump’s interview with Time magazine
- CosMc's: McDonald's reveals locations for chain's new spinoff restaurant and menu
Ranking
- Why we love Bear Pond Books, a ski town bookstore with a French bulldog 'Staff Pup'
- Hundreds of Slovaks protest the new government’s plan to close prosecutors office for top crimes
- Former congressman tapped as Democratic candidate in special election to replace George Santos
- 'Peaky Blinders' actor, poet and activist Benjamin Zephaniah dead at 65
- New Zealand official reverses visa refusal for US conservative influencer Candace Owens
- Attention all Barbz: Nicki Minaj has released ‘Pink Friday 2,’ 13 years after the original
- Mom convicted of killing kids in Idaho pleads not guilty to Arizona murder conspiracy charges
- A vaginal ring that discreetly delivers anti-HIV drugs will reach more women
Recommendation
EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
Retail group pulls back on claim organized retail crime accounts for nearly half of inventory loss
Scientists: Climate change intensified the rains devastating East Africa
This African bird will lead you to honey, if you call to it in just the right way
Finally, good retirement news! Southwest pilots' plan is a bright spot, experts say
Mystery of a tomato missing in space for months has been solved, and a man exonerated
Yankees' huge move for Juan Soto is just a lottery ticket come MLB playoffs
Shots fired outside Temple Israel in Albany, New York governor says