The Florida Roundup - Idalia recovery efforts underway in Florida's Big Bend

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

Hurricane Idalia hits Florida and brings historic high water. Are record high storm surges and rapidly strengthening storms our future? This week on The Florida Roundup, we look at the impact of Hurricane Idalia and recovery efforts in Florida's Big Bend and other communities along the Gulf Coast.

Today on the Florida Roundup, Hurricane Adelia hits Florida and brings historic high water. Straight up water. All covered in water pretty much everywhere in town. There's debris everywhere. Kind of tragic. It's the most water I've ever seen here. It's like a river in the road.

Our record high storm surges and rapidly strengthening storms are future. What questions do you have about the science of storms and future forecasting? Email us now, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Also, a racist shooting in Jacksonville last weekend comes 60 years after the March on Washington. Nobody but those that were there can imagine what that was like. It was sacred.

I'm Tom Hudson in Miami. What you're talking about across the state this week is next on the Florida Roundup here on Florida Public Radio. Thanks for listening this week. I'm Tom Hudson. There has been significant damage, particularly along Florida's Big Bend, but the community is resilient and we are going to work hard to make sure people get what they need. A region that has not experienced a direct hit from a hurricane in modern times is cleaning up today from a major storm this week. Hurricane Yelena came and out of the southern Gulf of Mexico this week, taking straight aim to the part of Florida where the peninsula meets the panhandle.

It's where pine trees crowd the landscape, not palm trees. It's small towns and two lane roads, not beachside condominium towers and expressways. The storm's eye made landfall in tiny Keaton Beach. That's in Taylor County. Wind, rain, and storm surge, though, stretched out for a couple hundred miles away from the eye, flooding roads and bridges, neighborhoods along the Gulf Coast. President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit the areas impacted by the storm on Saturday as damage assessments, cleanup, and recovery efforts will continue for weeks, if not months. Adelia grew from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane in less than three

days. Is this rapid intensification becoming the rule for storms, not the exception any longer? And the storm pushed just walls and walls of water, some at least one story high, up and over seawalls and roads and bridges, up and down the Gulf Coast. So how are these surges changing hurricane forecasting? What questions do you have about the science of storms and storm predictions? We want to hear from you today live on the Florida Roundup on this Friday, 305-995-1800 is the phone number. You can also send us an email, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Our email address is radio at thefloridaroundup.org,

phone number 305-995-1800. Your calls and emails coming up. First, let's start and talk about where some of the most damaged areas of Florida are after this storm. Sarah Sowers is with us, a reporter from WUFT, our partner station based in Gainesville. Sarah, you were in Cedar Key leading up to landfall of this storm. Describe the conditions along the Big Bend that you've seen since the storm. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I was there on Tuesday in Cedar Key and traveling through Levy County. Lots and lots of people were boarding up, you know,

ahead of the storm, trying to put sandbags, protect their properties and homes. And now in the aftermath, I was in Steen Hatchie yesterday, just north of that area that received quite a bit of damage. You know, we saw boats not in the water the water in front yards and lots of sludge everywhere. Everywhere, wherever the water came up and storm surge infiltrated, that's where sludge and cleanup efforts were happening. Talk to us just about the accessibility with some of these areas. One two lane roads, small fishing villages, kind of old Florida is the way lots of people describe this area of the state. What was the

accessibility like even a day or so after the storm? Yeah, they call it the nature coast for a reason. And most of the way, you know, both to Cedar Key and Steen Hatchie, it was, you know, one lane road on each side. And lots of downed power lines along those roads and power crews everywhere just trying to get, you know, those resources back for the residents in those areas. Lots of downed branches. Luckily, by the time we were leaving yesterday, most of the road areas were clear. But I know that there are some bridges that are still not yet cleared for travel. Almost all of Taylor County, which is home to Cedar Key and Steenhatchee, remains without electricity on this Friday, as you and I are talking, Sarah.

What kind of restoration efforts did you see? Well, power companies from power trucks from companies all across our region were there. We saw Duke Energy and FPL, but there were also some companies I didn't recognize. So I think those are efforts from different parts of the state or even out of state coming to restore power for those individuals. And what are folks in these areas being told to expect in terms of the return of electricity? Any sense of a timeline yet? That part was not clear. A lot of people are running on generators right now, but it seems as though, you know, that's getting them by and they do have enough gas to support those until they get the power back on.

until they get the power back on. Did folks generally follow evacuation orders that were issued earlier this week as that forecast cone began to really zero in on the Big Bend area? It's hard to tell. In Cedar Key on Tuesday, we spoke to some people at a gas station filling up as they were heading out of town. And then there were some that weren't heading out of town. They were just filling up gas in case they needed to evacuate after the fact, you know, so that they could have those resources, electricity and food. And these towns, Cedar Key, for example, is only about a thousand people. And we talked to those people at the gas station and they said, yeah, we have some stubborn ones in our town and they might they might stay. So we're hoping that those people fared well during the storm. What kind of rebuilding repair efforts are the

residents in these small areas going to be needing in the weeks ahead? One restaurant and marina we spoke with in Steenhatchee yesterday said that their entire first floor flooded, and that was pretty much the kitchen area for their business. So they said all of their appliances are gone. And because it's a commercial business, they expect them to be on backorder for several months. So it looks like they won't be opening their restaurant anytime soon. And do they expect to rebuild or have they been thinking about retreating after this kind of storm damage and the expense that'll come along with it? They said they feel blessed and continue to work hard and protect their homes and businesses

and rebuild because they want people to visit these areas once everything's cleaned up. Yeah, it's an area certainly that is somewhat dependent on tourism, small tourism, but tourism nonetheless. What signs of assistance did you see as you were visiting Steenhatchee yesterday? Federal, state presence on the ground there, or neighbors helping neighbors mostly? There were a lot of neighbors helping neighbors. We did see a FEMA crew trying to coordinate some efforts at that marina. And I think, you know, the word got out to the community that the FEMA responders were there and filing claims in case they needed additional assistance. Governor Ron DeSantis visited the area yesterday as well and pledged

support for all of the people on the ground, which they said was a great confidence boost and just motivation to keep going. Yeah, it can certainly help with morale as the reality continues to set in in the days and weeks ahead. Sarah Sowers, reporter for our partner station WUFT, reporting with us here on the Florida Roundup. Sarah, thanks for sharing your reporting with us. Thank you so much for having me. This storm is just the latest storm to experience the rapid intensification over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes Michael, Ian last year, for instance, experienced the same kind of thing. Is this the new reality? How does this rapid intensification perhaps change

your own hurricane planning if and when a storm comes threatening? We want to hear from you now. 305-995-1800. That phone number 305-995-1800. You can send us an email as well. Radio at the Florida Roundup dot o r g radio at the Florida Roundup dot org. Regan McCarthy is with us, reporter with our partner station out of Tallahassee, WFSU. Tallahassee, of course, was spared certainly the worst that this storm had for Florida. But Regan, you were in Perry in Taylor County, the county seat there, which, boy, saw really just devastating winds and rain. Of course, it's off the coast, so it missed the storm surge, but it did not spare Perry. Describe the conditions that you were able to see.

You're right. I visited Perry Wednesday. So really, I was there hours after the storm had hit, and I was just seeing people just beginning to start the process of picking up the pieces and trying to find a road to recovery. Downed power lines all over, many trees knocked down, roads blocked off. One image that I'm sure a lot of people have seen, it's been all over, you know, network television, is a gas station canopy that was completely blown over, knocked over by the strong winds of Hurricane Idalia. So the way that residents of Perry that I spoke with there described it was just devastating. They said the damage there was beyond what they could have imagined. Yeah, as we mentioned, this area of Florida has not seen a direct hit in the better part of more than a century and a half. Were residents expecting

such a direct impact as that eye of the storm came right through the area? The people that I spoke with said that they expected a direct impact more toward the coastal areas, you know, toward Keaton Beach, which did also get that very hard hit. But people in the town of Perry, residents there, were not expecting to have such a significant amount of damage. Many of them said that they saw, you know, this was the worst storm that they'd ever been in, and it was much worse damage than they had expected. So much of a recovery effort depends upon the local economy being able to get back and open again. A lot of that depends, of course, on electricity and any more internet connections to be able to conduct commerce. What are the expectations in

terms of power restoration in Perry? So we heard from Governor Ron DeSantis this morning that Taylor County, where Perry is, still has one of the highest numbers of power outages in the impacted areas from the storm. He says that Duke is reporting that it expects to have 95% of its customers reconnected by Saturday, but many of the little towns in Taylor County work with electric co-ops. And so Duke is helping with that. And there is a lot of help from other outside sources trying to get those people hooked back up. But it does seem like there is a long road to recovery there. I will say that when I was in Perry, I saw many crews working immediately to get that power hooked back up. As I drove into town,

a lot of the traffic lights were out. I saw crews in bucket trucks working to restore power there. And by the time I drove out of town back to Tallahassee, many of those lights were already back on. Big industry in Perry and Taylor County, forestry and the paper industry. industry in Perry and Taylor County, forestry and the paper industry. Can you share anything with us regarding the ability for that industry, those companies to be able to return to business? I can really talk from my perspective that I know from covering Hurricane Michael five years ago, which also has a lot of paper industry over in that area. And I know that that was a big concern that when all of the timber falls and is becoming, you know, soggy on the ground, there's a rush to either get that produced quickly, immediately at sawmills that may be

struggling with power, with connectivity, with having available workers who are busy trying to get their homes back together, or else that timber is potentially lost. And so I know that that will be a big concern to see how quickly they can move to solve that problem. Yeah, awfully important to get that local economy and local industry back up in addition to the power restoration and, of course, folks being able to get that local economy and local industry back up in addition to the power restoration and, of course, folks being able to get into their homes and see that kind of damage. Regan McCarthy reporting from our partner station, WFSU in Tallahassee. Regan, thanks for sharing your journalism with us.

Thank you. This storm that Floridians experienced this week, just that most recent to quickly strengthen into a major and catastrophic event. We want to talk about rapid strengthening. Is this the new norm for storms in Florida? How does that affect planning? What about forecasting? How about the storm surges? In some cases, the forecast for Hurricane Adelia had storm surge of 12 to 16 feet,

three stories of water. How does that affect your planning? Email us, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Our lineup to call is now 305-995-1800, 305-995-1800. The storm surge came during full moon tides in Florida, pushing water up against the coastline and inlets for hours upon hours, before, during, and after the worst of the storm passed. for hours upon hours before, during, and after the worst of the storm passed. High water choked roads, overflowed some low bridges,

filled some neighborhoods far away from the eye of the storm. It just kept coming up, and we watched the mailbox disappear, and then it came back. So how bad was flooding south of the eye of the storm? Stephanie Colombini with our partner station in Tampa, WUSF, is with us now. Stephanie, you were out in Hernando County in the aftermath of this storm, a couple hundred miles away from Keaton Beach. How bad was it? It was still, you know, pretty significant, the flooding that they got there, and really a sight to see in terms of how quickly the waters receded. I was there yesterday, a day after the storm.

The skies are bright. Most of the streets are clear, except for some pools of water. You wouldn't necessarily know what happened until I walked into the businesses that were flooded right along the coastline of Hernando Beach. You could see the water had gone up at least three or four feet and a lot of destruction. You know, people's walls gutted and their floors damaged, lots of debris strewn about. And so, you know, folks talked to me about how, you know, when the storm kind of passed overnight on Wednesday, they woke up thinking that things were okay. And then when

that tide, that high tide came in, that's when all the water started flooding in, homes were flooded and businesses. What were the preparations while this area was really not in that cone of concern? We know we're not supposed to focus on the cone, but we focus on the cone nonetheless. It's our human nature. But what were the preparations that you saw? I think people did take it seriously. I think what happened was they remembered Hurricane Ian, and that was a storm that was supposed to head straight for Tampa Bay. And then, you know, in the 11th hour made that sharp right hook. And of course, just absolutely devastated the Fort Myers area and southwest Florida. People I spoke to in the

Tampa area remember that, saw those images and did not want to mess around. So, you know, they either evacuated, mostly only coastal areas were ordered to evacuate, but people also made sure to stock up on necessary supplies and hunker down so that they were in good shape to weather the storm. What was the general response in terms of folks that are now dealing with yet another storm? Is it kind of acceptance of this, looking to maybe fortify their properties in new and different ways? I think so. You know, there's definitely stress. One restaurant owner I spoke with had just bought her restaurant a year and a half ago and is like, oh, my gosh, first Ian, now Idalia. So there is that aggravation. but people are determined to stay put. Those who live on the water love it. And so, you know, everyone told me this is just the way of life. Living in Florida along the coast right now, we have to be prepared to deal with these hurricanes. And so what about the conditions

after the storm? The I officially made landfall 745 in the morning. By early afternoon, skies were beginning to clear up further south. But those conditions continued, didn't they? Yeah, you know, there was still rain intermittently, but the biggest challenge was still that flooding because the high tide cycles continued. And that was one thing emergency officials really wanted to warn residents is just because you woke up in the morning and the eye wall had passed and you think you're in the clear, we've got more flooding ahead. And we did see that not to the level it could have been. There was, you know, warning that several more feet of storm surge could have hit the area. But we did see that flooding continue. And that's just, you know,

you're trying to clean up your business and then more water pours in. It's another aggravation. Yeah. And yet, you know, we're still in the heat of the worst part of storm season. And we're also moving into that time of year where we're seeing some king tides move in, right? And just these high tides and these cycles continuing to hit some of these low line areas. Yeah. So that could definitely make cleanup and flooding restoration more challenging. So hopefully people are aware and protect their homes. Yeah. What kind of presence for cleanup did you see? Was this mostly a community response for cleanup, residents helping residents? There was a ton of that, and that really did mean a lot

to business owners. I saw, you know, restaurants who didn't get hurt were, you know, showing up to the business I was at to offer food, and people were bringing supplies like fans and just even their manual labor. But, you know, business owners have said county officials have been very helpful, and that crews have been going out, you know, immediately once it was safe to start assessing the damage, inspect for serious electrical issues and health violations. And so they are getting some help with the counties as well. Counties have committed to pick up people's storm debris. So I think people are happy so far with the response they're seeing.

Yeah, that storm debris, another big piece of that puzzle to have some return of normalcy after a big storm like this. Stephanie, thanks for sharing your reporting with us from the Bay Area. Much appreciated. Sure. Stephanie Colombini from our partner station in Tampa, WUSF. Still to come on the Florida Roundup this week, we want to hear from you. Fast strengthening storms, walls of water from storm surges. You've seen it, perhaps you've experienced it firsthand, or you've seen other places in Florida have to deal with it. So what questions do you have about the science of storms and storm predictions as you prepare for the continuation of hurricane season? Radio at thefloridaroundup.org, our email address, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, or 305-995-1800.

We're back on the Florida Roundup here on Florida Public Radio. Thanks for listening. I'm Tom Hudson. You know, storms like Adelia have a tendency to interrupt plans, right? It certainly did for us here at this program. This week, we originally planned on talking about the job market in Florida. You know, more jobs were created here than in any other state in July. Some areas have unemployment rates near record lows, well below 5%. We're going to talk about it on next week's program now, and we'd still like to hear from you. Have you gotten a new job recently? What about a pay raise? You're negotiating for more pay. Maybe you've even had trouble finding work despite the low unemployment rate or finding

work that you want to do, that you're passionate about. Or maybe you've retired recently. If you own a company, what has hiring been like in this economy? We want to hear your experiences, and you can share them with us by emailing us now, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Your stories will really help us next week when we're talking about working in Florida. It took less than three days for Edelia to develop from a tropical storm into a major Category 4 hurricane with sustained maximum winds of 130 miles per hour and storm surge predictions of up to 16 feet. The storm

now joins Michael and Ian, two massive storms that devastated parts of Florida in recent years, and flaring up over hot water before striking. So how do you prepare for storms that could undergo such rapid intensification from a perhaps a mild tropical storm to an intense and catastrophic hurricane. 305-995-1800, 305-995-1800, or radio at the floridaroundup.org. Megan Borowski is with us now, meteorologist for the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Megan, what do you make of the speed of how this storm was able to develop into ultimately a Category 4 storm before coming on shore. Yeah, you know, it was quite remarkable, Tom. We had a tropical storm was named on Sunday, August 27th,

and Idalia stayed a tropical storm until Tuesday, the day before landfall. Then it became a hurricane and it underwent rapid intensification Tuesday into Wednesday, at which point it became a Category 4 hurricane, weakened just a little bit before landfall. But yeah, yet again, we had another instance of rapid intensification in the Gulf of Mexico. Warm water, we know, fuels that. The Gulf of Mexico waters 87, 88, 89 degrees in some cases. The storm itself, though, was moving pretty fast at a pretty good clip, but yet was still able to strengthen quickly. So what do you make of that? Right. I think that we lucked out that it was moving so quickly because I think the damage reports would even be much worse if it weren't moving at, you know, it was moving at about 18 miles an hour for a good portion of the evening on Tuesday and then on the morning of Wednesday.

If it had more time to sit over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I do believe it would have gotten even stronger. And then also, you know, the slower moving storms, you have one area within the eyewall for a longer amount of time. And that can really just, you know, decimate whatever location is in its path. So we did luck out if there is any silver lining from this event, the fact that it was moving so quickly. Yes, conditions were bad, but I do believe they could have been much worse. You mentioned the eyewall. Jill in Tallahassee has been listening into the conversation here, Megan, and wants to ask a question about that eyewall reconstruction. Jill, thanks for listening. Thanks for calling. You're welcome. You're on the radio. Go ahead. We were just

wondering, when they talked about Edalia before the making landfall, that the eyewall would replenish or reconstruct itself. What does that mean? So that's just, that's the evolution of the hurricane itself. So it's it's undergoing eye wall replacement, which which can be indicative of the storm strengthening. So that's what they they were discussing in that little line. Megan, Jill, thanks for calling from Tallahassee. Hope you and your family are safe. Megan, you and I were together in the storm center in Gainesville and saw that eye wall replacement happening just as the storm was inching close to Keaton Beach. And as you mentioned, the storm weakened ever so slightly, right? We don't want to make too much of a five mile an hour maximum sustained gusts of weakening from 130 to 125 miles an hour, category four to a category three. But what perhaps contributed to that weakening just as it was coming on shore?

Well, it's most likely actually that eyewall replacement cycle. So it's the evolution of the thunderstorms within that immediate center of low pressure circulation. And so sometimes we'll see during that cycle, the actual maximum sustained winds will dip just a little bit. The storm also took a little bit of a angle toward the east, sparing Tallahassee and more populated areas from what could have been devastation in that area. Anything in the early science looking at the storm that led to that change? You know, the models were, they were pretty good as we got into the last 24 hours of predicting where this thing would make landfall. And some of them were inching more to the west, but a good portion of them were clustering to that eastern kind of

hook curve, which is what Idalia actually did. And I will say Tallahassee is quite lucky that they were on the west side of the storm. I mean, we did have some damage, some wind damage down trees. But as we know, the west side of the forward motion, you have weaker winds. On the right side of the forward motion is where we have the worst winds. So Tallahassee did really luck out. And the Gulf Coast spent all day on that right side of that storm as that wind continued to batter the waters of Gulf of Mexico, pushing those waters up, as we just heard from Stephanie Colombini in the Tampa area, Hernando County, Pinellas County, Hillsborough County,

flooding certainly a few hundred miles away from that center of that storm. Storm surge, one of the really big stories of this storm. Alan has been listening in to our conversation in Miami. Go ahead, Alan. You're on the radio. Oh, yes. As I said, I live a block from the intercoastal, two blocks from Biscayne Bay, and maybe three or four blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. My question is, when a storm surge comes from whatever direction, how the distance, how long does it take for that storm surge to dissipate?

Well, that's a really good question. And honestly, it's going to depend on the prevailing winds, which direction the winds are coming from, and then also the tides. So with the case of Edalia, we actually had tides coming in when the storm actually moved to the north and we still had those onshore winds. So we had storm surge inundation for a while. But, you know, once the winds abate and the tides start moving out, that's when we should see the drainage from the storm surge flooding itself. Alan, thanks for the call there from Miami Beach. Of course, South Florida, Southeast Florida spared really any of the conditions that Adelia brought to the Big Bend

area. But everybody on guard for storm surge. I mean, it is a phrase that has entered into the lexicon in terms of preparations for hurricanes and storm surge well far away from coastlines. How has what we've seen with Hurricane Michael, what we certainly saw with the Gulf Coast saw last year with Hurricane Ian, and the forecasting that we had with this storm, how is storm surge changing in terms of forecasting and communication? Well, I think there's a lot more dialogue around storm surge and storm surge inundation. I think that unfortunately, you know, a lot of people focus on winds. Oh, it's, you know, category one, two, three, four, five. But the biggest killer with a tropical cyclone is going to be flooding

either from storm surge or from freshwater and rainwater flooding. So I believe in the broadcast community, at least we are trying to get the word out of the the threats from each storm in terms of storm surge inundation. And hopefully we can continue with that and really bring awareness because that's what's causing the need for evacuations is that inundation of storm surge. You know, something else that does impact, you know, the forecasting too is the amount of development right along the coastline. There's, you know, nature has a way of being able to cope with extreme events like this. For example, mangroves are great at absorbing storm surge. But when you

have development right along the coastline and we're taking away those natural barriers, that's going to make the impacts of storm surge much worse. That's interesting, right? I mean, mangroves in South Florida certainly have been a story about development. This battle between development and the environment is the story of modern Florida, no doubt. But what about some of those natural barriers further north where pine trees kind of begin to replace what are palm trees down south? You know, I'm not sure of the biologics between, you know, the different vegetation. But I will say that the more development that we do have directly along the beach is going to mean there's more human impacts, right?

So you have those structures right there well there's a good chance at some case in point that you're going to be impacted by a tropical cyclone or or even you know abnormally high tides or even you know if we have just a strong cold front come through and we have those onshore winds that's that's all getting um you know increase our chances of dealing with flooding. The rapid intensification of these storms has made forecasting certainly more difficult. Maybe perhaps not on the path. There's always a little bit of difficulty there, but really trying to forecast the strength of these storms. Hurricane Michael in the Panhandle, intense rapid intensification.

We saw that with Hurricane Ian last year, this storm as well. How has rapid intensification changed, Megan? Well, I will say in the Atlantic Basin, we have seen an upward trend in cases of rapid intensification over the last 30 to 40 years. In 2020, that was a remarkable year. We had 10 cases of rapid intensification. And the official definition, just so everybody knows, is an increase in maximum sustained winds of 30 knots or 35 miles an hour, give or take a few, within a 24-hour period. So you might even hear the term, you know, when we're talking about snowstorms or something like that, bombogenesis. I like to say this is the tropical equivalent of that. So it's you have this remarkable increase in wind strength over a short amount of time,

24 hours. So, you know, a big player in this is sea surface temperatures and then also the ocean heat content or how how deep into the column of water that that warm water is. And of course, the big discussion this year in terms of tropical forecasting is the the anomalously high temperatures of the Atlantic and also the Gulf of Mexico. You know, and we also have El Nino, which detracts from tropical development, but the waters are just so warm that any disturbance that we get will help these storms to, or the sea surface temperatures will certainly sustain tropical development. When a storm is flaring up that fast, getting that much stronger in that short period of time, how does that influence the path forecast? Does it make a storm more stable in terms of the direction it's headed or less stable or no difference? Well, you know, that's a very good question. I'm not sure the

particulars on that. I will say when a storm is intensifying, the thunderstorms get deeper into the column of the atmosphere. So you have to look at the entire column in terms of steering winds. And then you can kind of figure out the track from there. I don't believe it's changed. You know, it makes the track more difficult, but that's a question for all the experts at the National Hurricane Center. So I'm going to give you 20 seconds here, Megan, because we're not even at the climatological peak of the hurricane. It is September 1st. We're within two weeks. Yeah, right? Yeah. What's the short-term forecast? So right now we've got, I believe, five areas in the Atlantic that we're actually watching.

So we have four named systems and then one tropical depression. Okay. Still active. Yeah. We'll have to be watching and listening there. Megan Borowski, meteorologist with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network. Megan, thanks so much for your time. Thanks, Tom.

You are listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. Brenda Deerfield and her husband John and daughter Gracie left Steenhatchee Tuesday morning, about 24 hours before the worst of Hurricane Adelia roared ashore. They took their businesses with them. roared ashore. They took their businesses with them. Brenda likes to take videos and she used an app on her iPhone to make this video. She titled it, Hemingway is moving out, Adelia stay away. Brenda's in the passenger seat of their truck pulling an RV-like trailer with the word coffee on it. Their coffee and taco stands are in trailers. It gives them the chance to hitch them up and pull them to higher ground when a major hurricane is threatening. So that's

what they did. Their business is Hemingsway, is kind of named after the author who lived through his own devastating Florida hurricane, but it's possessive. Hemingsway, like style. Normally the trailers sit on a plot of land just two blocks from the Steenhatchee River, a short walk to where the river meets the Gulf of Mexico, just 20 miles south of where Adelia's Eye officially made landfall Wednesday morning. When the Deerfields returned Wednesday afternoon, the lot where their trailers usually are was under a couple of feet of water, but their home further inland was high and dry along with their coffee camper and taco trailer. They had just gotten their generator up and running and recharged one of their cell phones so we could talk over FaceTime.

I'm Gracie Deerfield. We are in Steenhatchy, Florida right now. Just got done with the hurricane. And I'm the coffee shop owner of First and Eight Coffee here in Steenhatchee. I'm John Deerfield this is my wife Brenda. Brenda. We own Hemingsway First and Eight Tacos. Our daughter has First and Eight Coffee. Mine's the coffee camper and theirs is the taco trailer. We grew up and basically lived just south of Columbus, Ohio, about 40 miles. And that's where our lives were, is around Columbus, Ohio. We made a decision a little, almost three years ago, to go ahead and sell and come down here. We ended up in Steenhatchee because my cousin is a charter captain. They've lived here for about 10

years. And also, Gracie used to spend the summers down here scalloping with my cousin. She was very familiar with Steenhatchee. We've visited Florida for a couple of years and half jokingly, I always said, I'm going to sell hot dogs on the beach. Steenhatchee, if you're familiar with the town, there's not a beach. My daughter had worked in a previously local coffee shop that closed up, so we set her up with another coffee venue and we opened up our taco venue. We had a lot of tourism come through this summer, especially for 4th of July, too.

We had a lot of people come through and support our small business that we have it's really taken off we've had incredible local support for people in this town they're phenomenal they've really really supported us and we couldn't be happier and also the tourists that come in they've called us the past couple days making sure we're okay and they're like we don't know if you remember So they want to make sure you're okay This weekend was supposed to be one of our biggest weekends, too we were counting on a Pretty good profit and now we are not going to be able to open because there's no electricity and of course our lot is flooded

Straight up water. There's like, I don't know, it's just all covered in water pretty much everywhere in town. There's debris everywhere. A lot of small businesses were flooded out. It was just kind of tragic to go through knowing that yesterday we were in perfect condition. The devastation is significant. Some major buildings right on the waterfront are gone. Of course, parts of them are still scattered around the streets and on a little bit inland.

It was a significant surge and I think the winds had a lot to do with it. I think I'm going to keep selling coffee out of Steenhatchee. I think no matter what happens, I know I have a community behind my back to help me build myself back up, and they know that I'll do the same for them. And, you know, hopefully I can get a few more locations around Florida, and I'll know what to do, especially in the future for future hurricanes. Gracie Deerfield and her mom and dad, Brenda and John, in Steenhatchee. Brenda hopes the trailers will reopen after the electricity is restored in about three weeks.

Still to come, a racist shooting in Jacksonville comes amid tensions over teaching black history. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. This is the Florida Roundup on Florida Public Radio. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for listening. It's been nearly a week now since a white gunman killed three black people in Jacksonville. Authorities are investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The Department of Justice has called the shooting an act of racially motivated violent extremism. The attack took place on the same day the country was commemorating the 60th anniversary of the

March on Washington. On that day, August 28, 1963, thousands gathered at the Lincoln Memorial demanding equal rights for African Americans and to hear Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his now famous I Have a Dream speech. Among the crowd on the Washington Mall that day were two women from Central Florida. WMFE's Joe Burns shares their stories. Linda Chapin and her dog Oliver welcome me to their home in Orlando's College Park neighborhood. This is Oliver. Oh my gosh, Oliver, you are gorgeous. Come on, Oliver. Please come in and sit down. In the 1990s, Chapin led Orange County as its first mayor. But back in 1963, the 20-year-old white woman had just graduated from Michigan State University and come back home to Orlando. On August 27th of that year, she took a train to Washington,

D.C. and met up with college friends who were also concerned about civil rights. The next day was an experience they had not anticipated. They had not expected the vast number of people. We had come because we were young, because something important was happening, because friends were there, because it was going to be a big event. We did not know that it was going to be one of the most important moments of the 20th century. Chapin says she doesn't remember many details from that day. Her recollections are mixed in with videos she's seen through the years, but she is grateful she was there.

Being part of that and knowing as we went along how important that moment was gave me a sense of responsibility. I had to fulfill that legacy, that day, the impetus for change. I had to be part of continuing that. In a blue and white house in Rockledge near Coco, Rosemary McGill has let me set up a microphone on a chair to record her story. In the late 50s and early 60s, McGill, then a black teenager, joined other local youth in civil

rights protests guided by the Reverend W.O. Wells and Rudy Stone. Up the coast in St. Augustine, she marched with Dr. King and witnessed Klan violence. For McGill, the memory of the March on Washington is full of rich details and wonder, and a lesson about choosing love over hate. She was part of the small Brevard County delegation sponsored by the NAACP, traveling through the night on one of the so-called freedom trains. So there was three of us girls and one boy and a chaperone. And we got on that freedom train that came all the way from Opa-locka, Florida down Miami. And let me tell you, I thought too was just going to be black people on that train. It was full of white folk. Jews and Catholics.

It was so many priests on those trains, and we sang all night long. All night long, eating and singing, smoking cigarettes. They joined the huge crowd marching slowly down Pennsylvania Avenue. McGill says three, quote, hippie singers marching next to her group turned out to be the folk singers Peter, Paul, and Mary, and behind her were a line of nine white men. McGill and other protesters had been instructed to avoid violence, but the man behind her kept touching her back. She had no experience with white people joining in protests,

and she suspected he was trying to cause trouble. I got agitated. I said, if this man fondled my body one more time, it's going to be a fight on Pennsylvania Avenue and it's going to be a bad riot. By the time we're coming up to the Lincoln Memorial, he's fondling my back, and the boy that was in my delegation from my high school turned to me and said,

Rose, help him up. He's blind. I get choked up every time. That man was there marching for the same thing I was marching for and using my body as his guide. As McGill sees it, the whole day was miraculous. Nine men from the Blind Foundation. Can you imagine that? And the person next to me, how in the world history would have Peter, Paul, and Mary next to me singing a folk song? If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.

I'd hammer about the love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land. Then I'd go and sit at the foothills of the Lincoln Memorial and listen to Dr. King when he burst out with, I have a dream. Nobody but those that were there can imagine what that was like. It was sacred. McGill says King spoke with an evangelical passion that caught their attention. I don't care how hard it was or how tired you were, you sat up and you listened. And when you're listening, here's the thing that was so passionate about it. You started crying.

And you know why you were crying. But to really explain what the March on Washington means for her, McGill tells a story about two little girls from Macomb, Mississippi. It was back in the 1930s. The girls, ages 8 and 12, were standing beside their mother when, according to McGill's story, she was shot to death by a white plantation owner. The man thought he could claim what they called paramour rights and rape any black woman on his land. But their mother had resisted. The girls fled into a swamp where they hid for two days. Later, they escaped to Biloxi with their older sisters.

McGill picks up the story ten years later. It was a cold, cold winter morning. It was 1944, February 23rd, cold. The 18-year-old gave birth to a 9-pound baby girl. That 9-pound baby girl was me. That 8-year-old girl was my mother. The 22-year-old was my Aunt Rose, who I'm named after. When I think about the March on Washington,

when I think about the March on Washington, when I think about the experiences I've had, when you ask me a question, what did that day mean? That day has a lot of history for me. McGill believes the honest history, the true stories of African Americans need to be told. Back in Orlando, Chapin, the former mayor, has a similar concern. Chapin says she celebrates decades of progress on civil rights, but thinks Florida is taking a step backward with, for example, its controversial new standards for teaching African American history. I've been enormously disappointed and distressed over the attempt in Florida to diminish that history, to look away from what actually happened to African-Americans

and to many people involved in that movement. For this moment, at least, we remember a small part of that history. In Ocala, I'm Joe Burns. You are listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. Governor Ron DeSantis has condemned the shooting in Jacksonville, saying the targeting people due to their race has no place in the state of Florida. Still, some critics of the governor say racist attacks like the one last weekend are in part fueled by recent state policies, including ones aimed at restricting how black history is taught in Florida schools. From WUSF in Tampa,

Carrie Sheridan has more. This summer, Florida changed its curriculum standards. Now, students in middle school must learn that skills acquired in slavery could have benefited people who were enslaved. Historian Lisa Brock, a professor emeritus from Kalamazoo College in Michigan, says that's wrong. When you look at the ads for sales of captives from Africa into enslavement, they say things like 10 Negroes from Benin, familiar with ironworking. Oh yes, 100 strong bucks from Senegambia, able to to produce rice because they came with skills. Politicizing the way history is taught has led Florida to ban an AP African-American studies course. And the way Black history is taught in middle school is also changing. James Stewart is a professor emeritus at Penn State University and lives in Sarasota.

If you compare the new standards to the old standards, you can see a lot of sort of retrenchment. For instance, Stewart says some parts of the Florida standards go back to using the word slaves, whereas historians today more commonly say enslaved people to humanize what they endured. Scholars like Stewart say more voices are needed at school board meetings and elsewhere in support of Black history. By the way, I've been a teacher of Black history since 1975. That's Marvin Delaney, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. You know, so I'm discouraged and angry about what's happening in Florida, that they're trying

to turn it into something evil and harmful to children. His group is holding its annual conference next month in Jacksonville. Delaney says one of the sessions at the conference is called... How to Teach Black History Without Going to Jail. What's humorous, he says, is there's no need for teachers to avoid black history ever. They don't have to stay away from topics such as slavery and the civil rights movement. They can incorporate those things into the curriculum without it being, quote, offensive to anybody. Delaney says they decided on the six-day conference in Jacksonville

long before a white gunman killed three Black people in a dollar store this weekend. And despite the NAACP's travel advisory saying Florida is hostile, Delaney says they need to be there. We're using the theme of running to the fight. He says now more than ever, he and other black scholars are motivated by the words spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. I'm Carrie Sheridan in Tampa. Finally on the Roundup, Governor Ron DeSantis is not the only one with the beef against Disney. Charter Communications is in a tough negotiation with Disney over television channels. You see,

Charter owns Spectrum Cable, which has thousands of customers in Tampa, Orlando, and throughout Central Florida. It's the second largest cable TV provider in the country. The company and Disney have been locked in a fight over fees. They had a deadline of Thursday at five o'clock Eastern time to hammer out a deal. It did not happen. So Disney channels went dark for Spectrum Cable customers. But things got really serious for Florida customers a few hours later when the college football season was supposed to get underway. The Gators playing Utah out west. The game was on ESPN, which is owned by Disney. The channel was one of those blacked out for Spectrum customers. Maybe it was a good thing for Gator fans. An electric start for the Utes and the Gators find themselves quickly down by a

touchdown. It really didn't get any better for UF. The Gators lost. The game may be over, but the cable TV battle continues. That's our program for today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and Florida Public Media. Bridget O'Brien produced the program. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and our Technical Director is Peter Merz. Engineering help from Doug Peterson and Charles Michaels.

Richard Ives answers the phones. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at AaronLeibos.com. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening, and supporting Public Radio. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific holiday weekend.