Treasure Coast tries to stay calm before a monster storm they hope will miss

Hurricane Dorian only grew stronger and a swath of Florida’s Treasure Coast was placed under tropical storm watch Saturday afternoon but the mood here improved anyway, dialed down from near-panic to mere anxiety mixed with a little hope.

That’s what a major shift in a monster hurricane’s predicted path will do.

Though forecasters were now expecting 150-mph Dorian’s menacing core to remain offshore, residents and business owners were taking no chances, preparing for powerful winds, dangerous storm surge, and extreme flooding. But, taking breaks from installing shutters, stowing patio furniture, and filling gas tanks on a sweltering Labor Day weekend, they were hoping for the best .

At the historic, beachfront Driftwood Inn and Resort in Vero Beach — a rambling, Old Florida lodging and restaurant built mostly of pecky cypress and other flotsam and jetsam — no one was doing anything remotely like panicking Saturday. But in an abundance of caution, the resort had canceled all reservations for what would have been a sold-out holiday weekend.”

”It’s a big hit,” resort general manager Jeanne Radlet said. “It takes a lot of time to prepare this property for a storm. I feel a lot better than I did [Friday], but I know how storms change.” Radlet said she hopes to re-open Wednesday.

Waldo’s — the resort’s restaurant is named for Vero Beach pioneer Waldo Sexton, who built it in 1937 — even hosted a few bar patrons and diners, including locals “Tiki” Steve Kottrell and his companion Tracy Jenter.

”Chilling on the beach on a Saturday,” Kottrell, a bass player whose fulltime job is roofing company estimator. “I just gave Waldo’s my business card.”

Kottrell was more concerned about what would happen to baby sea turtles expected to hatch any day from numerous nests all along Vero Beach. Even from well offshore, Dorian’s storm surge could combine with the season’s higher-than-average ‘king’ tides to erode beaches and bury nests all along the Treasure and Space coasts.

It’s been a banner nesting season with more than 6,100 loggerhead and nearly 2,300 green turtle nests recorded since April just in Indian River County. Many have already hatched, but many more remain.

Quintin Bergman, the county’s sea turtle specialist, wrote in an email that sea turtles have adapted to deal with storm damage by laying nests at varying distances from the water so that some will survive while others will not.

Unlike in Irma, the state’s roads were not jammed with evacuees this time. And some residents were glad state and local governments were keeping cool heads.

”It’s a good thing they’re not calling for an evacuation five days out,” said Scott Adams, a 45-year-old firefighter and lifeguard. “That’s how accidents and injuries happen.”

Adams complimented Gov. Ron DeSantis’ tone over the last several days, urging caution without sparking too much anxiety. He criticized Florida’s former governor, Sen. Rick Scott, for what he considered gloom-and-doom messages before Irma. He disapproved of some state politicians’ rhetoric two years ago, calling out former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine for describing Irma as a “nuclear hurricane” in the media.

”That creates a panic,” Adams said.

Despite the encouraging shift in track, some residents were still planning to evacuate.

Daniel Wukits, who lives about 18 miles northwest of Vero Beach in Micco, a rural community of mostly manufactured homes near the Indian River Lagoon, had a particular challenge on his hands. He was worried about what to do about 180 parrots, macaws, cockatoos, conures, and other birds he cares for at his Galleon Treasures Parrot Sanctuary.

The squawking, chattering birds — ”What I have here are what nobody else wants”, Wukits says — are housed outdoors in large chain-link and wire cages in a shady corner of his wooded, overgrown acreage. He said he was concerned that Dorian’s face-peeling winds may knock down some of the large, dead trees and crush the birds in their cages. But putting them in smaller cages and relocating them to a nearby non-profit organization’s barn, he says, would stress them, and him, out.

”Now it looks like 100 mph winds east of us, I might not move them,” Wukits said. “I’ll make my decision [Sunday] midday. I try to buddy them up and make a family. Parrots are a handful. They’re like little kids.”

At nearby Barefoot Bay, Florida’s largest manufactured home community with more than 9,800 residents, John Pomfret and some of his neighbors were helping each other install aluminum shutters on the windows. But none said they planned to stay in their homes, despite careful preparations.

They recalled extensive damage to the community inflicted by back-to-back hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004, and said they aren’t willing to risk a repeat.

”We have a concrete block house in Sebastian we’re going to,” Pomfret said.

Added neighbor Lauren McCarthy: “I’m going to Orlando for a few nights and ride it out in a hotel with a bar.”

Sue Cocking is the former outdoors writer for the Miami Herald. Miami Herald Staff Writer Joey Flechas contributed to this story.

This story was originally published August 31, 2019 at 7:21 PM.