With floodwaters rising and hurricane warnings intensifying, Dean Park residents braced themselves Sept. 26, reliving the trauma of Hurricane Ian as they once again faced devastating damage to their homes and community.
After a trip to Greece, Artis Henderson returned home to another storm, which inundated her home with more than 2 feet of water, leaving significant damage in its wake.
When she returned to the area early that Thursday morning, Henderson recalled her mother, who lives on the beach, calling before 9 a.m. and urging her to come pick her up before conditions worsened.
“I brought her to my house in Dean Park,” Henderson said, who has lived there since 2014. “Everybody kept saying the storm was nothing, that we were overreacting.”
Then came the flooding.
“We were just hanging out on our phones and then on a text thread a friend sent a photo of the street in front of my house,” she said.
She and her friend stood on my porch, watching water pouring in quickly.
What began as minor flooding quickly escalated. Within moments, water was rushing into the streets. Henderson and her family evacuated to a friend’s elevated home two streets away.