Chelsy Robison huddled in an empty building on the Paradise Park mobile home campground in Perry, Florida, on the evening of September 26, listening as 140 miles-per-hour winds tore through the state’s Big Bend region. Robison, recovering from hernia surgery; her boyfriend, Steve; and their dog, Judah, had abandoned their violently shaking trailer just a few hours earlier, fearing it would not survive the storm.
The next morning, as the worst of the winds died down, they emerged to find that Hurricane Helene had left behind a world of damage: Fragments of one neighbor’s walls littered the grass, roof panels had been ripped clean off a communal building, and a trailer just a few dozen feet from her own had been flipped entirely upside down. In the distance, a sea of downed power lines and felled trees covered the mobile home park’s 8 acres. Her trailer sat amid the calamitous scene, miraculously unscathed.
