All around St. Armands Circle, evidence of the five-to-seven-foot storm surge could be seen Tuesday as businesses continued to pick up the pieces caused by Hurricane Helene.
Business owners in the thriving St. Armands commercial district have always understood hurricanes as a possibility, but Hurricane Helene’s historic storm surge caused setbacks many never could have imagined. Now, forced to reckon with the realities of operating on a barrier island, some business owners are wondering whether the prime real estate is worth the risk.
Florence Keenan owns Garden Argosy, a gift and souvenir shop that’s been in St. Armands Circle for 27 years. No stranger to hurricanes, Keenan said she took the proper precautions when preparing for Helene — sandbags, shutters, and all — but it was obsolete against the storm surge that sent four feet of standing water rushing into the store’s interior.
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The damage destroyed around 90% of Keenan’s inventory, she said. A price tag of at least $300,000. Restocking is at the bottom of a lengthy to-do list, behind clearing out the lost products and assessing the damage at large.
Helene brought the fourth instance of flooding for Garden Argosy in a calendar year, Keenan said. With significant financial strain, an uncertain recovery timeline, and compounded damages from the weather events of the past 12 months, Keenan said she isn’t sure whether the store can afford to stay on the circle.
“It’s been difficult to even make plans,” Keenan said. “We’re on a 50/50 right now.”
Keenan has heard rumblings of neighboring businesses shutting their doors for good. With mainstay spots like The Columbia Restaurant shuttered indefinitely, business owners are wondering whether recovery is even possible.
“The circle is really not prepared for this type of event,” Keenan said. “It’s the price we pay as tenants.”
Cindy Bachand, a sales associate with Fugate’s By The Sea, is uncertain what the future looks like for the boutique shop. She said the owner plans to take two months to assess the damage before determining next steps. The boutique has a sister store in Boca Grande where inventory that survived was being transported, she added.
Bachand has worked for multiple businesses around St. Armands Circle over the last six years, and many businesses can’t recall a time when there was so much storm surge.
“I really enjoy the Circle and I’m going to miss what it has to offer,” she said. “It’s going to take some time, but obviously, it’s rebuildable.”
In eight days, BD’s Salty Seaman’s Fun Shop will celebrate its first anniversary on St. Armands Circle. The store is one of the lucky businesses to not have been devastated by the surge that swept onto the barrier island. It’s in part because the business sits on an elevated part of the Circle.
On Tuesday afternoon, five days after the storm, the store was open for business as usual and had six customers stop by.
Owner Sherri Stock said the store had about a foot of water that flooded in but it receded pretty quickly thanks to a drain in the store.
Stock added that she feels for her neighbors who are dealing with immense losses from the storm and knows that it will take a long time for many of the businesses to recoup. She went through a similar situation when her store in Fort Myers was devastated by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
She’s now taking stock to prepare for future weather events.
“We’re a tourist-driven store, so the beach is our place,” Stock said. “It’s part of the deal. A barrier island is to be a barrier island for a storm, it protects the inland. When you build and you have a business and you live on a barrier island, being prepared for a hurricane or being knowledgeable that at some point you are going to have to deal with that is part of the deal, it’s part of the game.”
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Business owners on the circle say they’ve had moments of doubting the viability of staying as the aftermath of Helene sinks in, but the prevailing sentiment is a determination to stay. They’ve taken it upon themselves to kickstart the recovery process, and the community around them has followed suit.
Kimberly Gordon has owned The Spice and Tea Exchange on St. Armands Circle for two years. After remodeling the store a month prior, her business lost around 75% of its product to three feet of flooding. Like almost every one of her neighbors, this is the first time the Exchange has flooded to this extent.
Gordon said she considered closing her doors for good when she saw the damage, but the thought left as soon as it came.
“It was quickly just replaced with, ‘We have to remodel and rebuild,” Gordon said. “We’re going to look at modifying the model and the buildout.”
Gordon reached out to Bayside Community Church when she saw the damage, and a coalition of around 15 people showed up over the weekend to start the recovery process. The volunteers, including Bayside Community’s Fruitville campus pastor Willie Gilliard and his wife Jessica, have been clearing out the spice and tea shop’s damaged building materials since Saturday.
Willie Gilliard said community outreach is a regular event for the church — so much so that the church has organized separate task forces among legions of volunteers to respond to different events.
“As the need comes in, we reach out,” he said. “Our normal jobs are just kind of put on pause and we go into disaster relief mode.”
Bayside’s volunteer group and other community members have gathered on St. Armands to aid in the recovery and cleanup process. Neighboring businesses have banded together to clear out their storefronts, and volunteers noted that other bystanders have jumped in to help.
Gordon said a future reopening wouldn’t be possible without the group effort.
“Fortunately, we’re part of such a great community that has experienced things like this, and they just all came,” Gordon said. “It’s one day at a time.”
The Florida Department of Commerce has set up a temporary business resource site at 3660 N. Washington Blvd. for small businesses affected by Helene. The site is open Oct. 2-4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The department is also encouraging businesses to report any damage via the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s Business Damage Assessment Survey, which will allow the state to organize and expedite recovery efforts. Small businesses can also apply for federal assistance via the U.S. Small Business Administration.
More information from the City of Sarasota on small business assistance can be found here.
