- April 23, 2024
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Evan Beat stands in the spot where a dune once was. Photos by Brian McMillan
Evan Beat: “I don't regret staying, but I wouldn't do it again."
Evan Beat and his mother, Francine Beat, stand near their front door, which is buried by about three feet of sand.
The swimming pool is marked only by a metal hand rail.
Evan Beat, Francine Beat, Linda Hirsch and Ken Hirsch
Francine Beat’s blond hair furled and unfurled against her face in the wind, as she sat on a chair in the driveway of her beachfront home north of Hammock Beach. It was the afternoon of Oct. 11, and the home had survived Hurricane Matthew’s storm surge. And yet, she was regretful.
“We should have left,” she said. “Next time, yes, I would leave.”
Her son, Evan Beat, stood next to her in the driveway. Twenty-six years old, he’s short and balding, with a goatee and cheerful eyes. He had volunteered to stay at the home at 61 Ocean St. during the storm. Meanwhile, Francine Beat stayed with friends three doors down, unwilling to go any farther from her home, behind despite the mandatory evacuation order.
Evan attempted to ease her conscience. “If I didn’t stay, you were going to,” he said with half a smile.
The trauma of the hurricane — and knowing her son was in harm’s way — was still fresh for Francine Beat, as was the evidence of the power of Mother Nature all around.
The home used to have a swimming pool. But it has been entirely filled in. Instead, there is now a bed of sand with a metal handrail.
The home used to be protected by a dune, with a beautiful wooden walkover. Now, the dune is gone, have been bulldozed away by the ocean, and the walkover is torn in half, twisted in midair.
“I'm old,” Francine Beat said. “I'm done. I’m going to move to Palm Coast.”
Evan Beat recorded his bout with Matthew with a series of harrowing videos on Facebook. But it started with a great deal of preparation, some having taken place years earlier, when straps and other hardening techniques were implemented, per county building codes. Francine Beat said she is grateful today for the building codes.
In the days before the hurricane, Evan Beat also surrounded the house with 80 sandbags. Then, with his mother at the neighbors’ house, he settled in to watch the hurricane come for him.
By about 10:50 a.m. Friday, Oct. 7, the house was already surrounded by water, and Evan was using towels and tarps to try to stop leaks. But a couple of hours later, he went down to the garage and was lifting a box of documents from the floor to a shelf to keep them from getting wet, when he heard a groan and then a thunderous boom. A panel of the garage door burst, and seawater poured in.
Evan Beat was knocked off his feet, and his legs were scraped up by debris. He scrambled to the door that led inside and tugged with all his strength to open the door against the current. Then, once inside, he had to use all his strength to close it again, although it didn’t do much good: The bottom two steps were flooded, and he had to move up to the second floor.
He posted on Facebook: “I have lost the battlefront.” Friends implored him to evacuate, but he responded, “It’s too late.”
He kept his eyes on the soffit around the house, fearing that if one piece of the roof were to fly off, the rest would soon follow, and he might be next. Meanwhile, waves were now crashing against the house, and floodwaters rose. Down the street, the mailboxes were nearly covered.
Then he saw a shed across the street come loose from its foundation and float into a neighbor’s yard.
“And I saw this little thing, and I realized it was a cat in the skylight of the shed,” he recalled. “And I just thought, ‘I can’t just sit here and watch it drown.’”
So he jumped from the balcony into the water, and he scraped himself up even more because he had unknowingly landed in his shrubs, which were buried in the water. He swam across the street and grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck, and then he swam back, holding the cat in the air. When he reached the stairs to the deck again, however, another storm surge was coming. He lifted the cat as high as he could in the air, and he grabbed onto the railing and held his breath, and he was underwater, as waves broke against the house again.
“Adrenaline and fear — basically fear — kept me hanging on,” he recalled.
An hour later, the storm was essentially over. That evening, Francine returned home.
On Oct. 11, while Evan Beat was giving me a tour, the neighbors arrived, Ken and Linda Hirsh. I suggested to them that I was bound to get a Facebook comment when I posted the story, so I had to ask the question: Why didn’t they evacuate?
Evan Beat said with a smile, “I don't regret staying, but I wouldn't do it again." Looking at the possessions that were out in the driveway, drying in the sun, he said, "I'm disappointed I couldn't save more, but I did save a lot of things.”
But the Hirshes were adamant that staying was part of coastal life.
“If you're going to build near the coast, you have got to be willing to buy the best products you can buy to keep your home safe,” Linda Hirsh said.
“Our house was made to withstand 185 mph winds,” said Ken, although he later amended that to say the windows were rated at 180 mph.
Linda Hirsh also said the overstated weather predictions of the past were a factor for people staying. “This is the first time that they were right about how bad it was going to be,” she said.
Ken Hirsh laughed and said it was foolish for Gov. Rick Scott to threaten that this storm “will kill you.” The implication was that, clearly, it hadn’t killed the Beats or the Hirshes or any of their neighbors.
If you evacuate, there is also the danger that your home could be looted. In fact, the day after the hurricane, Evan Beat saw people peeking in the neighbors’ windows, and he chased some of them away. What if he hadn’t been there?
Still, Francine Beat wouldn’t change her mind. She shook her head and said quietly, “We were wrong to stay.”
To contribute to help the Beats pay for the deductible on their homeowners insurance, visit https://www.gofundme.com/2tda4pg.
