Artsy town Matlacha a mess after Milton. But ‘you just can’t give up on this place.’

Note: The Herald and McClatchy news sites have lifted the paywall on our websites for this developing story, providing critical information to readers. To support vital reporting such as this, please consider a digital subscription.

Steve Ondrejka and his son pushed mud from the passage of Hurricane Milton out of their garage with squeegees. In the battered yard behind the house his wife Andrea put a comforting arm around friend and neighbor Patti Sullivan.

It was a day of very bad deja vu here in this small artsy community along the road between mainland Southwest Florida and Pine Island. Very bad but not catastrophic — at least in comparison to Hurricane Ian.

Two years ago, Ian’s savage storm surge and winds pretty much bulldozed this place, which is famed for its art galleries and pastel colored buildings. This time, Milton left a mess, pushing power pole akimbo but leaving most structures intact, including the Ondrejka’s home. And out there in beautiful Buzzard’s Bay, the tarpon still rolled and the manatees lolled like always.

Sullivan, a therapist who lives with about two dozen others on tiny Shoreview Drive, just outside the first bridge in town, said it wasn’t enough to drive her from Matlacha, properly pronounced around here as ‘mat-la-shay.”

“Some people here said I’m done, and I understand,” she said Sullivan. “But you just can’t give up on this place.”

When Milton came ashore Wednesday it blew about six feet of water from Buzzards Bay up into the Ondrejka home. The upstairs interior was fine, but the garage of the two-story home Steve built was filled with mud. Their lanai was torn to shreds and their pool overflowed onto the yard.

The couple followed police orders and evacuated to their son’s home about five minutes away. Sullivan did as well.

After the ordeal of Ian’s drowning storm surge two years earlier, only one or two friends stayed in the tiny spit of land bordered by normally tranquil shallow bays.

“One friend texted the waters coming up and I can’t go outside,” said Sullivan.

The detritus of Milton’s flooding were already piling up in the swale: coolers, a treadmill and a dresser that had washed ashore.

Though it fared better than in Ian, Matlacha was still a mess. Electricity poles slanted precariously, wires dangling. Some homes were half in the water. One person said a restaurant named Hooked that hung over the water, fell in. Though police steering traffic through the village wouldn’t allow anyone to look for themselves.

The folks living along Shoreview Drive suffered counted themselves fortunate.

Ian had been a wrecking ball. Some homes simply disintegrated, others were so water-logged they had to rebuild from scratch. An empty lot next to the Odrejka’s used to be a home before Ian.

Before Milton Steve Ondrejka lifted his Pathfinder fisherman about 10 feet above the water, as high as it would go and it remained in place.

“Last time that boat ended up on my neighbor’s patio,” he said, pointing out the spot from between the two homes.

Buzzard Bay, still riled up Thursday after the storm, has reminders if Ian everywhere: a sandbar about 100 feet from the family’s home now covered with seagulls didn’t use to be there. The tops of trees across the bay look as if someone took a saw to them.

But, said Sullivan, there’s no where else she’d rather be.

“The wind was howling. We know to hide from the wind and run from the water,” said Sullivan, pointing to a baby dolphin just up from where a tarpon breached the surface. “We’re staying. We call ourselves ‘Shoreview Strong.’”

Sign Up for the 5-Minute Herald