Massachusetts student drives through Hurricane Helene in Tampa: “Scary, hands down”

TAMPA – The devastation of Hurricane Helene is hard to see on TV screens, but it’s even harder when you live it. A Massachusetts student weathered the storm in Florida and saw the devastation firsthand.

Experienced 3 hurricanes

There are many Floridians who have become accustomed to these types of storms, but it doesn’t always prepare them for the worst.

Videos of flooding and damage are all over Nick Beloff’s phone. The University of Tampa senior has seen at least three hurricanes during his tenure.

“For me, as a student from the Northeast, it’s an eye-opener to see what these storms are capable of on such a large scale,” Beloff said.

While the other storms were having an impact, Helene was something new to him. He has seen the life-saving rescues, the raging waters and the storm surges that surround social media.

“This one in particular was definitely scary. The size of the storm was insane,” Beloff said.

He hunkered down in his family’s home in Tampa’s Hyde Park neighborhood. Their street had some flooding, but most of the damage was minor.

“It’s Crazy”

“After the storm passed, I walked to what’s called Bayshore…it’s all over the news,” Beloff explains. ‘The whole road and the storm surge, I don’t even know how many meters. Unlike anything I’d really seen since I’d been here. It was crazy.’

He says the difference in geography is astonishing. At his house it felt like a tropical storm, but fifteen minutes away on Bayshore Boulevard the wind blew him away.

The next morning he and a friend went to appraise his friend’s house in Dunedin. It’s about 35 minutes east of Nick’s house, and right in the path of the storm’s damaging winds.

“It’s not my house, and I think it was really hard for me to even just see it,” Beloff says.

The area was devastated. There was more than four feet of water in his friend’s house. It took them six hours to search the damage.

“Decide what you want to keep and what you don’t, what you can save, what you can’t save, but being there for your friend is just as important,” Beloff added.