GULFPORT — At dawn Friday, when the deluge finally dwindled to a drizzle, people in this tiny waterfront town — and across Tampa Bay — began venturing out to see what havoc Hurricane Helene had wrought.

The road was closed three blocks from the beach. Lights from police cruisers swept the yellow-gray sky. For the first time anyone could remember, the mayor had called in the National Guard.

Waves, up to 8 feet high, had swept in overnight, shattering windows, downing doors, drowning the bars and shops. Beer bottles, silverware, beaded bracelets floated along the curbs.

The storm had passed more than 100 miles from Boca Ciega Bay. But the surge had destroyed downtown Gulfport: The worst damage since the town was founded more than a century ago.

“Like someone came in with a bulldozer and just tore everything down,” said Mayor Sam Henderson, 53. “I thought I was going to be sick.”

Here lay a tableau of the devastation so many Florida communities now face: postcard-perfect streets and humble houses torn into splinters. Gulfport, and so many other slices of Tampa Bay, have been forced into an existential crisis. What does rebuilding look like when so much must be gutted? How does the heart of a community endure?

No answers are immediately apparent, but here, in the muddy, miserable aftermath, neighbors turned to each other and faced the work ahead.

More than a dozen boats had smashed into the seawall, onto the beach, in the street, where a brown, oily river ran along Shore Boulevard S. Pier railings were twisted. The historic casino, beach shelters, rec center — all had been flooded.

At least two-dozen businesses were totaled, plus 70 houses. Most of the first-floor condos at Town Shores had waist-high water sweep through.

“We were so lucky,” said Paige Acree, who was hauling soggy T-shirts outside Gulfport Brewery. “We’ve been crying with the other business owners all morning.”

O’Maddy’s and Pia’s Trattoria, the Greek restaurant and the ice cream shop, the crystal store and pizza place, all of her neighbors nearer to the water had lost everything. Acree, whose brewery sits on slightly higher ground at 30th Ave. S, had water in her storage shed and brew house, but the dining room was dry. A dock from behind the casino had floated a quarter-mile up the road and landed at the eatery.

“Now we have dockside dining,” joked the brewmaster, Jason Toft.

Like many people who escaped the worst — and saw others suffering — Acree felt grateful. And guilty. She had to do something.

By 9 a.m., she and Toft had pitched a blue tent behind their new dock, set up folding tables and carried out coolers. Her husband drove the Jeep to Costco. The cook hauled the grill to the sidewalk and set out the ketchup.

• • •

The hurricane churned for hours off Tampa Bay, destroying thousands of homes, businesses and boats along Florida’s Gulf Coast.

At least 11 people in the area died. More than 1,000 had to be rescued.

Some escaped rising water in their homes, huddling in attics, paddling canoes, fleeing to neighbors’ apartments. Others had lost sleep stuffing towels under doors, moving files and photos to higher shelves, bailing their kitchens, only to call it a loss. Many woke to downed fences and trees, flooded cars. Saltwater sparked fires. Houses smoldered.

Nearly every corner of our region that touches water felt the storm’s brunt. Scenic neighborhoods like Davis Islands and Shore Acres saw high-water lines staining their facades. Sleepy retirement havens up and down the Pinellas and Pasco county coastlines were shattered. Along rivers like the Alafia in Tampa, and in vulnerable neighborhoods like Palmetto Beach, people took dogs and children in their arms and ran — or swam.

The day after landfall, nearly a million Floridians still didn’t have power — including 305,000 in Tampa Bay.

In Gulfport, residents were told it would be three days, at least, before the lights came back on. And months, maybe years, for their quirky community to recover.

Most of the affected homes and businesses lay in evacuation zone A. Others sat only 3 feet above sea level.

“What’s left of the homes and businesses will have to be gutted and rebuilt, but they won’t look the same,” the mayor said. “Insurance is going to make them elevate everything two to 12 feet, which will completely change the character and scale of everything.”

The town will come back, the mayor said, because of the people. “But I’m worried it won’t ever be the same again.”

• • •

Near the Gulfport waterfront Friday afternoon, sludge sat ankle deep inside Tommy’s Hideaway, glistening with shards of glass from shattered windows. Waves had toppled the industrial refrigerator, the kegerator, all the tables. Only the wood-fired pizza oven had been spared.

At least a dozen people were sweeping, mopping, squeegeeing. Some were employees who had no idea if they could ever go back to work. Others were strangers who had stopped in to lend a hand.

Rachel Maisner, 36, and her wife, Tinsley, 32, had been regular customers and now were scooping wads of sodden napkins from the floor. “Our power is out, so why not come help?” Maisner asked. “There’s not much we can do, but we can do this.”

A couple of doors down, across from what used to be the volleyball courts, Dia Vartsakis, 35, was watching men haul dripping blue booths from her restaurant, Neptune Grill, onto the curb. Surge had crushed the outside bar, swelled five feet indoors. She was worried about insurance, but more worried about her employees. She had to re-open for them, she said, and the town.

Next door, the Tiki Bar & Grill also had been flattened. A stove sat sideways, washed from the kitchen, and the patio had been swept away. On the only wall still standing, above where the bar had been, a blue sign said, “Welcome to Paradise.”

“We’re just trying to salvage whatever we can,” said Coleen Walsh, 69, stacking liquor bottles into soggy boxes. She and her husband, Dan, are snowbirds from Massachusetts and regulars at the tiki hut. They had walked down from their Town Shores condo to help.

“That’s what we do in Gulfport,” Walsh said. “That’s why we winter here and love this place.”

A couple of blocks up Beach Boulevard, where the water hadn’t reached, Lisa Merriweather, 51, was wrestling an industrial leaf blower down the sidewalk. Her shop, Modern Man Grooming Salon, hadn’t been hit. But she couldn’t bear to see the rubble and debris. For hours, she had been working her way down the main drag, blowing off driveways and sidewalks, anything she could do to start erasing the tragedy.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “But Gulfport is family. So much is gone. But we still have each other.”

• • •

The town started as a stop-over between downtown St. Petersburg and the barrier islands. In the 1910s, before there were bridges to the beaches, folks could take a trolley down 22nd Avenue S to Gulfport, then board a boat at the casino to Pass-a-Grille. The waterfront was lined with hotels and snack bars — many of which still stood. Until Friday.

Once cars replaced trolleys, and once bridges let beach-goers bypass the boat, Gulfport lost much of its tourism. Fishing became a main industry. Property values declined, and homes fell into disrepair.

That all changed in the mid-2000s, as artists and eclectic residents got priced out of Key West and revitalized Gulfport with galleries and shops. Newcomers, including many LGBTQ+ people, refurbished bungalows, opened restaurants, repopulated the downtown.

After the pandemic, the town hit its modern heyday. Breweries and bars filled all the storefronts, and markets and festivals drew busloads of visitors.

The town is 3.8 square miles, with about 11,400 year-round residents — retirees, teachers, landscapers. Dog parks and a prized library line its brick streets, shaded by live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. There are no chain stores or parking meters.

“We’re magical, quirky, blue-collar, diverse. Just a little slice of old Florida that doesn’t exist anywhere anymore,” the mayor said. “Or we were.”

For 15 years, as a councilman and mayor, Henderson has tried to preserve the little town, protect it. This hurricane could force Gulfport into a future he fears. “The price of repairs may mean we lose our character. There will be a different kind of people who can afford to live here, moving forward,” he said. “I think this one was it. The turning point. I hope I’m wrong.”

• • •

As the sun slid into Boca Ciega Bay on Friday, the bruised sky suddenly was streaked with scarlet. Dump trucks and disaster cleanup vans rumbled out of town. The river of polluted water had receded into the storm drains.

The woman with the leaf blower had cleared two more blocks, making it almost to Gulfport Brewery — where more than 100 people gathered around the blue tent. Couples, friends, strangers, kids, dogs filled all the tables on the sidewalk. The power was still off. The taps weren’t flowing. But everyone was drinking water and Gatorade, toasting their neighbors.

Sierra Espinosa, 27, wore a straw hat as she bent over the grill. She had already served at least 1,000 hot dogs and hamburgers. Now, she was starting to cook the donations, which had been coming in all afternoon: plump shrimp and filet mignon, 160 pounds of chicken. Nearby restaurants had emptied their freezers.

For hours, people had been flocking to the brewery with bags of granola bars and Doritos, diapers and Depends, tampons, toothbrushes, bleach, blankets, cat litter and dog food. One woman had spent all afternoon baking gluten-free muffins.

It was almost dark when Espinosa started filling take-out containers. A couple of filthy, exhausted men came to carry their dinners back to wherever they were staying. So many people wouldn’t be able to go home for a long time.

“Come back tomorrow!” called the cook. “We’ll be out here all day.”

• • •

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