INDIAN ROCKS BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Aiden Bowles was stubborn, so even as Florida officials told residents of the barrier island north of St. Petersburg that Hurricane Helene’s storm surge could be deadly, the retired restaurant owner stayed put.
Caregiver Amanda Normand begged the 71-year-old widower to stay with her inland, but there had been many evacuation warnings over the years as hurricanes neared his Indian Rocks Beach home — the storm surge never got more than knee-high. As Helene and its strong winds pushed north in the Gulf of Mexico, he wasn’t worried — its eye was 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore.
“He said, ‘It’s going to be fine. I’m going to go to bed,’” Normand said of their final phone call on the night of Sept. 26.
But it wasn’t fine. In that night’s darkness, a wall of water up to 8-feet high (2.4 meters) slammed ashore on the barrier islands . It swept into homes, forcing some who had ignored the evacuation orders to climb into upper floors, attics or onto their roofs to survive. Boats got dumped in streets, and cars dumped into the water.