The damage from Helene took some Sarasota residents by surprise. One family who decided to ride out the storm and wound up scrambling to save what they could. “First I want to give the glory to God; it could have been worse,

The storm surge, which was described by County Commissioner Mark Smith as 3 feet in height in the area, left many businesses working to clean up, with repairs and renovations ahead. Todd Morton, owner of Morton's Siesta Market and its sister stores, summarized the situation.

Midnight Pass, a naturally formed inlet separating Siesta and Casey Keys, was filled in in the 1980s by Siesta Key beachfront residents to protect their homes from destruction due to erosion. Critics say closing the pass has degraded the water quality of Sarasota Bay and have fought, unsuccessfully, to reopen it.

Hurricane Helene weakened to a Category 1 hurricane early Friday with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph), according to the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane Helene has made landfall in northwestern Florida as a Category 4 storm as forecasters warn of “catastrophic” flooding along the Gulf Coast

Hurricane warnings and flash flood warnings extended far beyond the coast up into northern Georgia and western North Carolina, with heavy rains and strong winds reported in much of Florida and Georgia Thursday evening.