PUNTA GORDA, Fla. — Hurricanes Helene and Milton sank and beached several boats that were anchored in the Charlotte Harbor, leaving some people who were living on their boats without a home.
Michael Brattain lives on his boat in the harbor, which survived the hurricanes. He said prior to Helene, there were 32 boats anchored in the harbor with people living on them. After Milton, only 6 remained.
“It's kind of devastating, we have friends who don’t have homes at this point,” Brattain said. “They don’t know where they are going to sleep. It’s devastating.”
Brattain said most of the ‘liveaboard’ community evacuated during Milton, not knowing if their boats would survive or what they would be coming back to. He said he had to inform some of his friends that their boats were beached in Punta Gorda’s Gilchrist Park.
“I said 'buddy your boat is in the tennis court,' it was a very hard conversation to have with somebody to tell them that your entire life is now up on shore,” Brattain said.
The liveaboard community is tight-knit, and Brattain said only two of his neighbors have returned to living on their boats that survived the storms. He said he’s worried about some of his neighbors who he hasn’t heard from after the storm.
“We haven't even had anybody reach out to us to ask if everyone is still alive on their boats,” Brattain said. “This boat here, this guy is in his eighties and his boat is up here on shore and I have no idea where he is at. Nobody in the government is checking on anybody out there on the boats.”
Getting boats that have been washed onto shore back into the water is no easy task either, and it's costly too. Brattain said one of his neighbors was quoted over $10,000 to have his boat moved from Gilchrist Park and put back in the water.
“You have to pay for a crane, pay for a trailer, get it to a marina with a gantry and pay for the gantry,” said Brattain. “So, you’re looking at double digits just to put it in the water if it's even going to float.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will remove eligible ‘at-risk’ or unwanted boats free of charge through its Vessel Turn-In Program, but that still leaves the liveaboard boat owner without a place to live.
The liveaboard lifestyle has been interrupted in other ways too. The dinghy docks near the Punta Gorda Boat Club that the community used to get on shore have been destroyed, forcing the community to drive their dinghies east to Laishley Marina instead.
Additionally, public restrooms and water fountains the community used are currently shut off.
Brattain told Fox 4 it will take time to try and put their community back together.
“Everything is destroyed it's going to take a long time to get it back to where it was," he said.
