After Tampa Bay’s two hurricanes, uncertainty, trauma and one lost cat

TEMPLE TERRACE — More than a month after Hurricane Milton toppled the laurel oak, sending it slicing through shingle and cinderblock, the mangled roof of the house still yawned open to the sky. Fuzzy clumps of insulation blew across the living room floor.

Christine Geyer, 51, wasn't back to linger on the destruction to her mother's home. After speaking with repair workers about the growing mold, she turned her focus to the one task she hoped would bring a happier ending: She searched for Champy.

"Champers, buddy!" Geyer called.

She lapped the neighborhood, glancing down cul-de-sacs and driveways for a glimpse of his tuxedo coat. The "Lost Cat" posters she'd hung described "a Batman mask and the cutest ear tufts."

"Still no cat?" asked a neighbor taking out his trash, who'd seen Geyer pass many times.

No luck today. It had been nearly three weeks.

As the days stretch into months after Tampa Bay's most destructive hurricane season in a century, the lonely slog of recovery has only just begun. Coping grows harder as the early hours of adrenaline fade into the purgatory of getting by. Housing is scarce. Endless paperwork bleeds into numbing hours on hold.

Geyer's longtime partner, Durke Schmidt, found himself sobbing one day as he shaved. He'd lost 10 pounds. The stress injected uncertainty into their relationship of 12 years as losses mounted that were more than just things.

The tree had crushed not only the little green home, which belonged to Geyer's family, but also their contingency plan. Thirteen days earlier, in the first of back-to-back hurricanes, their longtime Tampa rental home in the Palmetto Beach neighborhood was swallowed by floodwaters. Their cats climbed onto the stove or a floating mattress to stay dry.

Two storms, two weeks, two houses lost.

In a region consumed by disaster fatigue, Geyer and Schmidt's bad luck stands out — scarred by two storms that posed threats to different areas. Hurricane Helene's record storm surge decimated low-lying, coastal neighborhoods, while Milton thrashed inland areas with wind and rain.

"The hits kept on coming," Schmidt said wearily. "It is what it is. Divide and conquer, I guess."

Storm surge and panic Hours before their lives changed forever, the couple tried to relax on their tiled porch. Schmidt, 50, sipped whiskey on the steps and took drags from a cigarette, feeling the mist from McKay Bay already slapping the crumbling seawall a block away.

It was Sept. 26, and Hurricane Helene churned nearer by the minute.

He was only half-joking when he said he might as well enjoy the cool air before the "impending doom." He really did have a bad feeling about this one, though he hated to say it aloud as Geyer watched her favorite Marvel movies on a laptop beside him, spread out on a blanket.

It was a final moment of peace in a neighborhood they'd come to love.

Palmetto Beach is a lower-income enclave in the belly of Tampa's industrial zone — a pocket of older, more affordable homes tucked behind petroleum drums. Across the water, cranes at the port dominate the horizon.

To Schmidt and Geyer, the place had felt like a haven from gentrification, close enough to Ybor that he could ride his bike to the dive where he bartends. In the early morning hours after his shift, he liked to sip a beer on the seawall.

They met when she, too, was a bartender, both enmeshed in Ybor's hospitality circles. She's since transitioned to real estate but by night still breaks out feather boas to dance classic burlesque in Tampa Bay clubs, her tattoos peeking out from fabulous vintage robes.

As that night wore on, though, all illusions of calm vanished as quickly as the water rose.

Just after 11 p.m., as Helene's record storm surge was starting to peak, a Tampa Bay Times reporter texted Schmidt to ask if the couple was OK.

"No!!!!" he replied. "Trying to get out."

Then he stopped responding.

Tragedy and community As their refrigerator started floating, Geyer and Schmidt grabbed what they could, shoving items into bags in a haze of pure instinct. Schmidt threw a handgun inside, though he didn't know why.

Carrying the bags over their heads, the couple waded into chest-high water on their street, past his swamped Silverado.

For days afterward, while he crashed in a friend's camper, Schmidt kept taking showers, feeling like the scent of the floodwaters — a mix of gasoline, sewage and sea — wouldn't wash off. His friends told him they couldn't smell it.

Their community rallied. Fellow dancers gathered Geyer's vintage clothes, determined to save soaked corsets and dresses. A friend set up a makeshift bar, mixing cocktails outside the musty house for everyone who'd helped.

The couple prepared to inhabit the Temple Terrace home, which had just undergone a full renovation after Geyer's mother moved into assisted living. Her mom, 80, had come from upstate New York, fed up with blustery nor'easters, before dementia took hold. Geyer inherited a love of cats from her.

Just days later, as a monster storm once again churned toward Tampa Bay, Geyer sheltered their six cats in the bathrooms, nestled in baskets and towels. She planned to stay, too, until a friend offered a last-minute hotel room.

Once she returned to the house and saw the tree, Geyer shook with dread. She dug through insulation to find the cats, her skin inflamed from the fiberglass.

"No way this happens," Geyer kept thinking. She felt like she was in the movie Final Destination, where people who cheated death once are stalked by misfortune.

She found the cats, cowering but safe. All of them except Champy.

A glint of light In the weeks since, they've bounced between friends' houses, unsure of where to go next. Many Tampa apartments have gotten upscale, expensive.

Geyer doesn't know how much insurance will chip in for her mother's house. As their landlord fixes up the place in Palmetto Beach, they seesaw in conversations about whether they'd feel safe returning, as the threat of violent storms only grows with climate change. If they do move back, Schmidt thinks he might buy a life raft.

Last week, Geyer got a call from a Temple Terrace neighbor who'd seen the posters for Champy. Geyer tried not to get her hopes up as she drove over, remembering all the disappointing calls from people who'd spotted other black-and-white strays.

She got out of the car and called his name — then heard him meow back. Champy strutted out into the driveway, and she scooped him up, overwhelmed by his soft purrs.

Geyer took him home — or to her temporary home, at least. There, she wrapped him in a feather boa.

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