After losing everything to hurricanes, Floridians grapple with leaving permanently

https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3H0NrA_0wEQfna700
Mackenzie Spiroff dries her record collection after Hurricane Helene flooded her St. Petersburg neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Mackenzie Spiroff.

When the water receded, it took Mackenzie Spiroff’s new life with it. The stench of sewage and fish clung to her St. Petersburg home — or what was left of it — as she navigated the graveyard of her past before the storm.

Spiroff knew what she needed to save: a shoebox of fond memories, her father’s pottery and the “soggy brick” resembling her record collection. Notes and photographs dried scattered across her driveway, and dazed, the 21-year-old UF graduate baked in the sun along with them.

Everything else, she laid to rest…

Story continues

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

TRENDING ARTICLES