Cedar Key, a small community on a collection of tiny islands jutting into the Gulf of Mexico, is emerging as one of the areas most devastated when Helene struck Florida’s Big Bend region on Thursday night.
“Cedar Key as we know it is completely gone,” said Michael Bobbitt, a novelist and playwright who lives in the heart of the community and who stayed behind to help whoever he could. An estimated 75 residents chose not to leave, officials said. “Entire houses have been picked up and moved away,” Mr. Bobbitt said.
On Thursday night, as the storm was hitting, Mr. Bobbitt, who has military and first aid training, said he was able to get two older people out of their house and take them to his own, which sits on a partly elevated portion of his island. “We had to go through four feet of water to get to them,” he said.
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