PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Days after Hurricane Helene devastated the area, seniors in Gulfport are stuck in the dark and still without power. Many of them are not able to leave their condos because the elevators are down.
Marty Peters lives in the Town Shores retirement community in Gulfport.
"People don't have anybody in the area…I'm lucky I do…but people who don't have anybody in the area, I worry about them," said Marty Peters, a resident in the Town Shores retirement community in Gulfport.
Marty stayed with her sister during Hurricane Helene.
"I've seen tropical storms and surges and they've come up to my back but they've never come this bad," said Peters.
Many of her belongings are now destroyed.
"Everything was just gone and we had about four inches of standing water inside and it started creeping up the walls…so its just been a mess," said Peters.
But that's not the only issue residents of Town Shores are experiencing.
"My worry is all of the folks upstairs who are 80 and 90 years old and they are dealing with not having power," said Pat Lytle, President of her building.
Lytle is president of one of two buildings that lost power in the complex last week.
"They may not have a place to go and they may not have relatives in town and they are used to their own belongings and they just don't want to move," said Lytle.
She said many residents live on the upper levels of the building. The elevators are down, and many aren't able to walk well, so they are stuck. Firefighters have offered to escort people off the top floors, but many don't want to leave their homes without another place to go.
"I know it has to be miserable in their apartments as well because sometimes there's not a cross breeze and and they are just sitting 90 degree weather with no other options," said Lytle.
In the Town Shores community, local leaders said volunteers are doing up and down the stairs to the top floors to bring water and supplies to those stuck up there.
ABC Action News did reach out to Duke Energy to see when power will be restored at Town Shores and we are waiting to hear back.
In the meantime, residents are working to navigate their uprooted lives.
"Now it's just kind of waiting for someone to give us word on what the next step is and what we should do," said Peters.
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.
