“Two years. One community. Countless reasons to keep moving forward together.”
Two years on
WrightWay documents every loss to insurance standards, photos, moisture logs, and itemized scopes your adjuster can approve without back-and-forth.
It has been two years since Hurricane Helene made landfall on the Florida Big Bend on September 26, 2024 — bringing unprecedented storm surge to Florida’s Gulf Coast and catastrophic flooding to Western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and the Southern Appalachians.
For Southwest Florida — Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties — Helene’s storm surge inundated barrier islands, coastal homes, and Gulf-front communities that hadn’t seen water that high in living memory. Homes that had survived every storm since the 1960s lost their first floor in a single night. Many are still being rebuilt.
What we saw, what we learned
WrightWay was on the ground in the days and weeks after Helene. Some of what we saw will stay with us:
The mother in a Siesta Key bungalow who walked us through her flooded kitchen — pointing out where each piece of her grandmother’s china had been on the day before the storm. The retired couple in Englewood who’d lived in their home for 43 years and were facing the question of whether to elevate, rebuild, or sell. The small business owner in Manatee County whose restaurant lost everything below 36 inches and reopened anyway, because what else was she going to do.
Two years on, what we’ve learned is that Florida communities don’t quit. They mourn. They argue with insurance companies. They live in trailers and rentals and family members’ spare bedrooms while their houses are gutted and dried and rebuilt. And then they come home.
The recovery is still happening
If you are a homeowner still in some stage of recovery from Helene — still finishing repairs, still in an insurance dispute, still living somewhere other than home — please know your community has not forgotten you. The recovery work is not finished. Federal CDBG-DR programs administered by the affected counties continue to fund repair and reconstruction work for owner-occupied homes, and our Manatee County guide outlines one of the largest of those programs:
Manatee County Home Recovery Program: A Guide for Homeowners →
To the families who lost loved ones
Helene took lives. Across the affected region — including in our community here in Florida — families lost mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, and children. We hold those families in our hearts today, and we will not forget the names.
To the first responders and volunteers
The first responders, mutual-aid teams, faith-based volunteers, neighbors with chainsaws and pickup trucks, and out-of-state restoration crews who came to help in the days after Helene — thank you. What this region accomplished in those first weeks was extraordinary. We saw it firsthand.
WrightWay’s continued commitment
We have been a Florida-based, family-owned restoration company for years. We were here for Charley. We were here for Ian. We were here for Helene and Milton. We will be here for whatever the Gulf brings next.
If your home or business still has unfinished Helene-related repair work, or if you’ve identified hidden damage that’s only now becoming visible (it happens — water finds places to hide), call (941) 379-8669. We respond 24/7 and we’re certified to handle water, mold, structural, and reconstruction work all under one license (Florida CBC1253650).
🕯️ Two years on. Still here. Still helping. Stronger together.
— The WrightWay Emergency Services Family
WrightWay handles every restoration job from emergency response through licensed reconstruction.
One IICRC-certified team, one project manager, one phone call. Available 24/7 across Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties.
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