A fraternity chapter at Florida State University is doing what it can to help those affected by Hurricane Helene, which includes assisting a church outside of Perry as it recovers from eight feet of floodwater.
FSU’s Florida Beta Chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity lent a helping hand to Blue Creek Baptist Church in Keaton Beach, a Gulf coast community in the southern part of Taylor County, after it was hit by the Category 4 storm.
Pastor Justin Goins of Blue Creek Baptist Church described the storm’s aftermath as a “snow globe” effect.
“When you shake a snow globe full of water, the way everything sets down afterward is exactly what happened,” Goins told the Tallahassee Democrat Wednesday. “My church was full of water, and everything inside of it floated. When the storm surge went back out, everything settled down, but we had about four inches of mud from front to back and church stuff everywhere.”
As the church works on recovering, Goins says the process could take over a year and could mean having to move temporarily to another building.
Helene crashed into the Florida coast near Perry in Taylor County as a Category 4 storm with winds up to 140 mph the night of Sept. 26. The storm left thousands without power; some of the other hardest hit counties were Dixie, Suwannee and Madison, which were knocked totally off the grid.
