Hours after the waters of the Gulf of Mexico swept through her house, Donna Knight emerged in a windbreaker and boots to try to get her Chevy SUV to higher ground.
By noon on Wednesday, the center of the Category 3 storm had passed, and she and her 19-year-old son knew they had survived.
“We should have gotten off the island,” she said.
The homes in her neighborhood, many of them Old Florida-style beach houses, were battered and flooded, though some of their metal and wooden shutters remained on windows.
The storm surge lingered on some roads, smelling of salt water and gasoline.
Persons:
Donna Knight, Idalia
Locations:
Gulf, Mexico, ”, Old Florida