Indian Shores hotel owner said property may need to be rebuilt after Helene

The barrier islands in Pinellas County suffered major damage during Hurricane Helene. One hotel owner in Indian Shores said her property may need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

The Sunburst Inn is a 75-year-old hotel nestled between Gulf Blvd. and the beach and suffered major damage during Hurricane Helene on Thursday.

“I don’t think I fully realized the impact until I got here and I was able to see everything and realize it’s so much bigger than scooping out sand and replacing drywall. I don’t even know if we’ll be able to fix the damage,” said Andi Diamond, who’s owned the hotel for eight years.

She gave me a tour of the damage.

“Part of what makes me the most sad – because this is our office and this is where people’s vacations started. This is where they were welcomed by our amazing team. This is where their journey with us would begin. And you can see right here that the water obviously went up to about 2 ½ feet, which means this entire office was basically a fishbowl,” said Diamond.

The entire first floor of her hotel is destroyed and submerged in sand.

“If you reach up, you can touch the ceiling because the level of sand is so impacted and so high that it’s about three feet up and you can actually touch the ceiling now,” she said.

Diamond told me she fears she may have to have the place demolished. This is just a year after it was renovated on HGTV’s 100-Day Dream Home.

“It’s just heartbreaking to see what’s happened because we put so much heart and energy and love into the renovation and just into the property. So, to see it like this is just devasting,” she said