BRADENTON BEACH – Just two months after Hurricane Helene’s storm surge pushed piles of sand and debris into the city, a concerted clean-up effort enabled the festive spirit to return to Bridge Street.
At the city-hosted Christmas tree lighting at the post office on Nov. 21, Mayor John Chappie welcomed the crowd to the town’s main street.
“It’s been 56 days since this storm hit and it’s been tough,” Chappie said. “We are going to step up and do what needs to be done to get our city back up and better. We are survivors and we are going to survive.”
Leslie Lake | Sun
Chappie applauded Police Chief and Public Works Director John Cosby as the driving force behind the massive cleanup and the restoration of activity in the city.
“Chief Cosby and his team have been amazing with the recovery that’s happened out here,” Chappie said. “He is an expert in his field of emergency operations and he has helped to develop this team of our city, our public works, our city clerk, our building department, the SERT team that came down to help our community to beat this. We have and we will continue to beat this.”
He introduced Cosby, who was chosen to light the Christmas tree.
“This is the first normal thing we have done since the hurricane,” Cosby said. “And if you look around, we all made the decision to do this five days ago – all the lights and the tree. We weren’t going to do it, then we decided we needed to do it.”
Cosby said following Hurricane Helene, there was 4 feet of sand on just about every road in the city.
“Even when the governor (Gov. Ron DeSantis) came, he looked at me and said, ‘I’ve been to a lot of disasters and I’ve never seen this much sand,’ ” he said.
Cosby thanked FDOT for the help with sand removal, Bradenton Beach city staff and City Attorney Ricinda Perry for organizing the tree lighting.
As Cosby pushed the button to illuminate the tree, cheers sprang up from hundreds of attendees.
The next event, Christmas on Bridge Street, will be held on Dec. 7 beginning at 2 p.m. with a Table of Hope banner signing. In a display of city resilience, the signed banner will be hung across Bridge Street.
