Recovery efforts at Sugar Sand Beach RV Resort

Sugar Sand Beach RV Resort on Matlacha is on the mend following Hurricane Helene.

Tossed out furniture and ripped up drywall sit in piles, as people work to shovel out sand.

“This park had just been finished from Hurricane Ian, and we had it pretty much up to 100% ready to go,” said Straley.

But now, after Hurricane Helene, the Sugar Sand RV Resort is back to square one.

“The water just kept rising and rising and rising. We ended up with about two feet inside the building,” said Straley.

Luckily, Straley learned a thing or two after Ian.

“Anything that has a major control unit is off the floor, like four to six foot,” said Straley. “And that was lessons learned. Also, the building is sealed very well. We used hardy board. We just took our time building this obviously up to code.”

And the hard work shows.

“This is a much easier problem to deal with than what we had last time. If you’ve seen what it looked like before, it was very much left of a building. But you know, as long as you keep your head up, it doesn’t look too bad.”

While the yellow clubhouse is intact, the resort’s new dock, which was finished just a couple of weeks ago, is in pieces.

“It feels like it should have made it!,” said Straley. “It’s expensive. It’s probably one of the highest ticket items we have here in this small park with a limited income”

While the road to reopening is a long one, Straley is keeping his head up high.

“You can do things happy, sad or mad; and I like to think we do things happy out here. We still do live in paradise,” said Straley. “This still is a beautiful place, and there is a cost to paradise. There’s a price to it.”

Straley says he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to reopen. His estimate is a couple of months.

He’s going through everything with a fine tooth comb making sure it’s safe.