In late October I was heading to downtown St. Pete to see my chiropractor and I could see the missing roof that had been blown off the baseball field during Hurricane Milton. They have since taken the rest of the roof off and are still deciding how to fix it. With the season coming up at the end of March, the Rays will be playing at the Yankees spring training field in Tampa for the upcoming year.

A crane had fallen on an office building a few blocks from my chiropractor. It’s going to take a long time to fix that.

After my appointment I drove over to nearby North Shore Park and went for a quick walk along the water. It was too beautiful to go home.

A few days later Brett and I went over to Clearwater Beach to have lunch. The Columbia restaurant on Sand Key beach had just opened back up and were in need of patrons since most everything was still closed and not many tourists around. We love the Columbia so we had to go grab some lunch.

The parking lots on Clearwater beach were closed and full of sand that had been moved off the roads. They were just starting to clean up the beaches.

The famous Palm Pavilion Grill and Bar (my Dad was a bartender here back in the 40’s when he was home for the summer from collage) got a lot of flooding and damage inside. They are still closed but are posting they are hoping to reopen by early February.

Closed parking lots full of sand all the way down the beach. Many of the lots are now open and many of the big chain hotels (more than 2 stories) are open. The few remaining small 2 story Mom and Pop motels are still closed. It will be interesting to see how many reopen and how many sell out after the hurricane damage.

The Columbia restaurant on the intercoastal only got minimal damage inside since they are built up. They did have damage to their outside seating area and that is still closed. Brett and I went back for lunch again 2 weeks ago and that sailboat is still wedge up on the seawall.

Heading home in the other direction, home debris lined the street. Early news reports had said that 20,000-30,000 homes were flooded in the Tampa Bay area (Hillsborough and Pinellas counties) from Helene. And then Milton hit and did further damage. People are either staying with friends, spending a fortune on an apartment or renting an RV, staying in their homes without walls/kitchen and many are living in cars. Not to mention people are still living in tents in the snow in North Carolina.