Winslow Fuller, member of the Academy of Senior Professionals at Eckerd College, inspects the damage after flooding by Hurricane Helene. Photos by Joetta Keene
By 9 p.m., the water had crept up to the barriers protecting the bottom of Susan Burnore’s sliding glass doors. Just 10 minutes later, the water had risen nearly a foot and began pouring into her apartment at Seaside Villas on Boca Ciega Bay in Gulfport, Florida.
It was Thursday, Sept. 26, and Hurricane Helene—a mammoth Category 4 storm—had come calling.
Susan had arranged with a neighbor to evacuate to the second floor of her building. She and her friend Frank Bonnevie grabbed what they could, including her dog, Charlie, and struggled upstairs. Then Frank headed back down to search for Susan’s cat, Joe Biden, who they later learned rode out the storm atop Susan’s bed. “I was totally shaken,” Susan later says. “I was confident the second floor would be safe, but the speed with which the situation changed was terrifying.”
Within hours after the storm passed, she received an email from the Academy of Senior Professionals at Eckerd College.
“The next day, the people from ASPEC were already on our email lists, asking how everyone was and what was needed,” Susan says. “I explained that my apartment was flooded and both my and Frank’s cars were ruined. Immediately, I had multiple offers of cars to borrow and places to stay. It was amazing.” Susan borrowed a car from ASPEC members Ilene Robeck and Murray Cohn and stayed at a friend’s house.
Residents along Susan’s street—and across Tampa Bay—piled their ruined furniture, appliances and lifelong belongings along with storm debris onto the curb for pickup.
“ASPEC members offered everything imaginable,” she adds, “food, restaurant meals, help cleaning and packing, loading and storing … I was overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation.”
A member since 2022, Susan had worked for IBM in Florida, Kazakhstan, Russia and Indonesia. “I found my true calling as an usher for the Atlanta Braves and the Tampa Bay Rays,” she says.
The relief effort came together thanks to Joetta Keene, an ASPEC member since 2021 and a retired district attorney and criminal defense lawyer in Texas who now lives in St. Petersburg. “As soon as the hurricane hit, I knew this was different and was going to be trouble,” Joetta explains. “I knew we could have a bunch of people who would be displaced, so I put out an email on Friday. They responded immediately.”
More than a dozen of ASPEC’s 250 members were displaced by the storm. Most of them, Joetta adds, will need more permanent housing. “We’re here to provide a soft landing and help them find long-term rentals,” she says. “We also offer counseling or just someone to talk to.
“I joined ASPEC to be a part of a community of lifelong learners. But they’re also overachievers. They’ll step up. It’s a traumatic experience to lose your house. What if you were there that night and the water was up to your waist? These are hard things to deal with. But it’s all working out.”
Susan will be renting an apartment from an ASPEC friend. She estimates at least 15 members helped her get some semblance of her life back. “I’m so lucky to be a part of this remarkable group,’’ she says. “People volunteered to help that I didn’t think even knew me.
“They just knew that an ASPEC member needed help.”
