Hurricane Helene's staggering storm surge inundated neighborhoods on Siesta Key, leaving businesses and residents with a long road to recovery.

Residents of Siesta Key take stock of flooded homes and businesses just hours after up to seven feet of storm surge washed through the island.

The damage from Helene took some Sarasota residents by surprise. One family who decided to ride out the storm and wound up scrambling to save what they could. “First I want to give the glory to God; it could have been worse,

Midnight Pass, a naturally formed inlet separating Siesta and Casey Keys, was filled in in the 1980s by Siesta Key beachfront residents to protect their homes from destruction due to erosion. Critics say closing the pass has degraded the water quality of Sarasota Bay and have fought, unsuccessfully, to reopen it.

Eric and Lauren Cowan walked out of Morton’s Siesta Market and briefly into Siesta Village Liquors, which was set to close at noon because of the storm. The pair visit Siesta Key at least once a year from their Pennsylvania home, already having spent time on Siesta in July.

On Friday morning, Hermitage employees arrived to find mountains of sand left behind by the surge, with the campus serving as a microcosm of how Helene impacted Manasota Key as a whole. “The storm surge on Manasota Key was between six and eight feet of water,

The storm surge, which was described by County Commissioner Mark Smith as 3 feet in height in the area, left many businesses working to clean up, with repairs and renovations ahead. Todd Morton, owner of Morton's Siesta Market and its sister stores, summarized the situation.

Neighbors in hard-hit Siesta Key are dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene as they begin the recovery process.