Hurricane Irma (2017) — Sebastian, Florida

Hurricane Irma gave Sebastian a week of evacuation and preparation, one night of strong gusts on September 10, 2017, and only minimal damage once the storm tracked up the Gulf side of Florida (Sebastian Daily).

Hurricane Irma threatened Sebastian for a week and then passed well to the west. On September 7, 2017, Sebastian Daily described Irma as a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm, and Indian River County ordered the barrier island, low-lying areas and everything east of U.S. Highway 1 to evacuate. The storm instead ran up the Gulf side of the peninsula on September 10 and 11, and Sebastian got the outer wind field rather than the core.

The result was a near miss with real costs. Sebastian Daily reported on September 12, 2017 that residents in Sebastian, Fellsmere and Vero Beach woke up Monday morning to find either minimal or no damage to their homes. The same outlet called Irma the biggest hurricane threat to Indian River County in decades. What Sebastian did absorb was a night of strong gusts, a roof torn off a motel on U.S. 1, a countywide blackout, flooded streets to the west in Fellsmere, and a debris pile that took the City of Sebastian two passes to clear.

Indian River County declared a state of emergency on September 7, 2017, ordered evacuations east of U.S. Highway 1 and on the barrier island, and opened six shelters, two of them on the Sebastian end of the county (Sebastian Daily).

Preparation began four days out. County Administrator Jason Brown declared a local state of emergency at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 7, 2017, according to Sebastian Daily. Voluntary evacuation started first, and the mandatory evacuation for low lying areas, substandard housing, areas east of U.S. Highway 1 and the Barrier Island began on Saturday, September 9, at 8:00 a.m. In Sebastian that order reached the riverfront blocks along Indian River Drive and the Orchid Island beaches across the lagoon.

The county opened six public shelters, including two on the Sebastian end of the county: Sebastian River Middle and Treasure Coast Elementary. The others were the Freshmen Learning Center, Oslo Middle, Fellsmere Elementary and Liberty Magnet, which was the pet-friendly site. WPTV reported that the shelters opened at 8 a.m. Saturday and that by 2 p.m. there were more than 1,200 people in the shelters across the county, including more than 100 animals at the pet-friendly shelter.

Access to the barrier island was tied to a wind threshold. The Indian River County Sheriff's Office told WPTV that it would close the bridges as soon as sustained wind reached 39 mph, which cut off the Wabasso Causeway and the other crossings from the Sebastian side until crews could inspect them after the storm.

Sebastian spent the night of September 10, 2017 under gusts near 80 mph, and a motel roof was torn off on U.S. Highway 1, but Indian River County reported no deaths (Vero News).

Irma came ashore in the Florida Keys on Sunday morning, September 10, and the wind built in Sebastian through the day. Sebastian Daily passed on the forecast for gusts up to 50 mph during the day, up to 70 mph in the evening and 60 to 80 mph overnight, and noted that Indian River County would not get the eye of the storm. Citrus Industry later reported that the Indian River area had gusts of about 80 miles per hour maximum.

The most serious local emergency that night was in Sebastian itself. Vero News reported that deputies and fire rescue crews rescued eight people from a motel on U.S. 1 in Sebastian after the roof blew off, and took them to the pet shelter at New Liberty Magnet School. West of the city, twelve people were rescued from rising flood waters near Fellsmere about 9 p.m. Sunday and taken to the Fellsmere Elementary School shelter.

By Monday morning, September 11, Irma had weakened to a tropical storm moving north-northwest at 18 mph, and the hurricane warning for Indian River County was replaced with a tropical storm warning. Vero News reported that some parts of the county were flooded with 8 to 12 inches of rain, that several tornado warnings had been issued Sunday without any touchdowns, and that officials had no reports of loss of life in the county. Bridges to the barrier islands stayed closed until the Florida Department of Transportation finished structural surveys.

Irma left Sebastian with light structural damage, one partial roof loss and an outage that covered nearly two-thirds of Indian River County on September 11, 2017 (Vero News).

Structural damage in Sebastian was light. Sebastian Daily summarized on September 13, 2017 that Hurricane Irma did minimal damage to Sebastian, although one building lost part of its roof, while widespread flooding was reported in Fellsmere and Vero Beach. Sebastian businesses began reopening on Tuesday, September 12, as power came back.

Power was the longest disruption. On September 11, Vero News reported that nearly two-thirds of Indian River County remained without power, according to the Indian River County Emergency Services Department, and that most traffic signals were dark. By September 13, an FPL spokesperson told Sebastian Daily that most residents in Sebastian now had power, and more businesses along Indian River Drive and U.S. Highway 1 were opening. Barefoot Bay, just north of the city line in Brevard County, had power restored and then shut off again overnight for a main line repair.

Agriculture around Sebastian came through better than feared. Citrus Industry reported on September 12, 2017 that the Indian River area fared the best of all Florida citrus-growing regions hit by Irma, and the Indian River Citrus League put the loss at a maximum of 20 percent of the region's crop, with many groves still too wet to assess.

Sebastian recovered through two rounds of city debris pickup, FEMA individual assistance approved on September 13, 2017, and the reopening of Sebastian Inlet State Park by September 22 (Sebastian Daily).

Cleanup was mostly vegetation. A preliminary assessment by Indian River County staff estimated at least 100,000 cubic yards of vegetative debris from Irma, Sebastian Daily reported on September 13, 2017. A week later, county officials estimated there was enough debris in the unincorporated areas to fill a truck more than 6 miles long, and yard waste from public roads was hauled to the county landfill off Oslo Road.

The City of Sebastian ran its own collection. According to Sebastian Daily on September 20, 2017, the city did an initial pickup followed by a second collection in two to three weeks, a process the paper described as a lot faster than it was during Hurricane Frances and Jeanne in 2004. Regular service was disrupted in the meantime: the Indian River County Solid Waste Disposal District suspended recycling until further notice, and the county landfill returned to its normal 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule on September 12, according to Sebastian Daily.

Federal aid followed quickly. FEMA lists the Florida Hurricane Irma declaration, DR-4337-FL, as dated September 10, 2017, with an incident period of September 4 to October 18, 2017. On September 13, Sebastian Daily reported that individual assistance had been approved for people living in Sebastian, Fellsmere, Vero Beach and unincorporated Indian River County.

The parks and beaches east of Sebastian took longer. Sebastian Inlet State Park and St. Sebastian River Preserve State Park both reopened by September 22, 2017, when the Florida Park Service announced that 114 state parks had reopened while 53 remained closed (Vero News). The dunes did not fully recover before winter: after a January 2018 nor'easter hit beaches already damaged by Irma, the Sebastian Inlet State Park manager told Vero Beach 32963 that the park lost an additional five feet of dune height south of the inlet.