Boca Grande and Hurricanes: Storms of the 1980’s to the 2020’s

The History Byte of 2001 preceded Charley (2004), Hurricane Ian (2022) and most recently Hurricanes Helene and Milton (2024).  Those storms are currently being written into Boca Grande history.

David Futch wrote an article in a 2004 edition of the Gasparilla Magazine about Hurricane Charley. He interviewed Captain Fred Scott who said that the hurricanes he’d experienced were wind events. “I’ve never seen a storm surge yet that did anything. Charley had almost no storm surge and was like Donna. As far as high water, the worst was the no-name storm in 1982. It came two-thirds of the way up the lawn next to the docks at the Waterfront Motel (now the Innlet). That’s the highest I’ve ever seen it. It was about knee-deep. We seem to get one of these bad hurricanes about every 22 years. Donna in ‘60, the no-name storm in ’82 and this one in ’04.”

The most recent Hurricanes were Ian in 2022 and Helene and Milton in 2024.