ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — Imagine being hit by the same storm twice. Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on our beach communities right before it caused catastrophic damage in other states like South Carolina.
The owners of The Helm restaurant on St. Pete Beach got hit there first and then again in South Carolina at their second restaurant.
How long does it take a storm surge to fill a St. Pete Beach restaurant? It’s not a question co-owner Heidi Butler ever thought she would get the answer to.
“It happened so fast. It was like within a few hours,” Butler said. “Everything in here was floating. The refrigerators were floating. The furniture was floating.”
With her husband Michael by her side, she watched surveillance video in real time as their nautical themed restaurant took on feet of water.
“It was a very helpless feeling, you know,” she said.
That helplessness quickly shifted into survival mode after they realized hurricane Helene was now headed in their direction.
“We expected to have some heavy rains and winds and that was about it, but it just started turning again,” said Heidi. “It’s like we were hurricane magnets at that point.”
They felt like hurricane magnets because they were watching their St. Pete Beach restaurant flood while they were in South Carolina, setting up their brand-new restaurant there.
“It’s in Greenville, South Carolina. It’s on a river and the river rose to a historical high because the eye of Helene came right through Greenville after it left here,” she said. “So, the river was over 21 feet. It didn’t come into our restaurant, but it came up to the lower deck we just built, and we lost power for like eight days.”
It took days to get their South Carolina restaurant back open and to safely get back down to St. Pete Beach, where they found extensive damage.
Like most people on the beach, they had to pause clean up until after Hurricane Milton.
They’ve removed what they couldn’t salvage, such as the $50,000 worth of damaged equipment.
But it’s the things they were able to hold on to that serve as reminders of what it took to open their restaurant. For the couple those constant confirmations shows them that even with the same storm hitting them twice, they’re taking the helm, headed to reopen as soon as they can.
The restaurant has set up a fundraiser online and is planning a fundraising gala. They didn’t have flood insurance like most businesses here. But with help from the community, they’re hoping to be back open by the end of November.
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