Joe Vargas strapped a beach bag cradling his two small dogs, Peppe and Mama, around his torso before pushing his front door open to meet the wall of water head-on. It was late in the evening on September 26, and Hurricane Helene was just starting to thrash St. Petersburg, Florida with a storm surge that now engulfed him. Vargas, who is 63, will never forget how he felt in that moment, wading through the waist-deep murky torrent, debris churning in the deluge and slamming against his legs.
“I thought I was going to die,” he said on Tuesday. The torrent from the adjacent marina was “like somebody opened up a dam. It was like something biblical.”
Though he lives in Harbor Lights, a manufactured home community overlooking the intracoastal waterway, Vargas hadn’t heeded the mandatory evacuation order. Not only would leaving have been an added expense and a logistical headache, Vargas didn’t think he needed to — he’s survived major hurricanes before. “I didn’t know about this, I’d never seen a surge like this,” he said. “I was so scared.”
