TEMPLE TERRACE — More than a month after Hurricane Milton toppled the bay oak, Sending him through shingles and cinder blocks, the house’s shattered roof still yawned open to the sky. Thick blurs of insulation flew across the living room floor.

Christine Geyer, 51, did not return to stop at the destruction of her mother’s home. After talking to repair workers about mold growth, he turned his attention to the only task he hoped would have a happier ending: searching for Champy.

“Champions, friend!” Geyer called.

He walked around the neighborhood, looking at dead ends and driveways to see his tuxedo coat. The “Lost Cat” posters that he had hung described “a Batman mask and the cutest ear tufts.”

“Still no cat?” asked a neighbor who was taking out the trash and had seen Geyer pass by many times.

No luck today. Almost three weeks had passed.

As days turn to months following the most destructive hurricane season in a century in Tampa Bay, the lonely road to recovery is just beginning. Coping becomes more difficult as the first few hours of adrenaline fade into the purgatory of getting ahead. Housing is scarce. Endless paperwork turns into endless hours of waiting.

Geyer’s old companion, Durke Schmidt, found himself sobbing while shaving one day. I had lost 10 pounds. Stress injected uncertainty into their 12-year relationship as losses mounted that were more than just things.

The tree not only destroyed the small green house that belonged to Geyer’s family, but also his contingency. plan. Thirteen days earlier, in the first of consecutive hurricanes, his former rental home in Tampa, in the Palmetto Beach neighborhood, was swallowed by floodwaters. Their cats climbed onto the stove or a floating mattress to stay dry.

Two storms, two weeks, two houses lost.

In a region consumed by disaster fatigue, the bad luck of Geyer and Schmidt stands out: marked by two storms that threatened different areas. Hurricane Helene’s record storm surge decimated low-lying coastal neighborhoods, while Milton battered inland areas with wind and rain.

“The blows kept coming,” Schmidt said wearily. “It is what it is. Divide and conquer, I guess.”

Storm surge and panic

Hours before their lives changed forever, the couple tried to relax on their tiled porch. Schmidt, 50, drank whiskey on the steps and puffed on a cigarette, feeling the fog of McKay Bay already hitting the crumbling seawall a block away.

It was September 26 and Hurricane Helene was approaching by the minute.

He was only half-joking when he said he might as well enjoy the fresh air before “imminent doom.” He really had a bad feeling about this, although he hated saying it out loud as Geyer watched his favorite Marvel movies on a laptop next to him, spread out on a blanket.

It was a last moment of peace in a neighborhood they had come to love.

Palmetto Beach is a low-income enclave in the center of Tampa’s industrial zone: a cluster of older, more affordable homes hidden behind oil barrels. Across the water, the port’s cranes dominate the horizon.

For Schmidt and Geyer, the place had felt like a refuge from gentrification, close enough to Ybor that they could bike to the dive bar where he works as a bartender. Early in the morning, after his shift, he liked to have a beer on the boardwalk.

They met when she was also a waitress, both involved in Ybor hospitality circles. He has since transitioned into real estate. but at night she still pulls out feather boas to dance classic burlesque in Tampa Bay clubs, and her tattoos peek out from fabulous vintage robes.

However, as that night progressed, all the illusions The calm faded as quickly as the water rose.

Just after 11 p.m., as Helene’s record storm surge began to peak, a Tampa Bay Times reporter texted Schmidt to ask if the couple was okay.

“No!!!!” he responded. “Trying to get out.”

Then he stopped responding.

Tragedy and community

When their refrigerator began to float, Geyer and Schmidt grabbed what they could and stuffed the items into bags in a haze of pure instinct. Schmidt threw a gun inside, although he didn’t know why.

With bags over their heads, the couple waded through chest-deep water on their street, passing their flooded Silverado.

Over the next few days, as he crashed into a friend’s camper, Schmidt continued to shower, feeling the smell of the flood waters—a mix of gasoline, sewage, and sea—not dissipate. His friends told him they couldn’t smell it.

His community came together. Fellow dancers collected Geyer’s old clothes, determined to salvage soggy corsets and dresses. TO friend set up a makeshift bar, making cocktails outside the moldy house for everyone who helped.

The couple prepared to move into the Temple Terrace home, which had just been completely renovated after Geyer’s mother moved into assisted living. Her 80-year-old mother had come from upstate New York, fed up with the nor’easters, before dementia took hold. Geyer inherited his love for cats from her.

Just days later, as a monster storm hit Tampa Bay again, Geyer sheltered her six cats in the bathrooms, huddled in baskets and towels. She also planned to stay until a friend offered her a last-minute hotel room.

Once he returned to the house and saw the tree, Geyer trembled with fear. He dug through the insulation to find the cats, their skin swollen from the fiberglass.

“No way is this happening,” Geyer kept thinking. It felt like I was in the movie Final Destination, where people who once cheated death are stalked by misfortune.

He found the cats, cowering in fear but safe. Everyone except Champy.

a flash of light

In the weeks since, they have been going from house to friend’s house, not knowing where to go next. Many apartments in Tampa have become luxurious and expensive.

Geyer doesn’t know how much the insurance will pay for his mother’s house. As their landlord spruces up the place in Palmetto Beach, they talked about whether they would feel safe returning, since the threat of violent storms only grows with climate change. If they return, Schmidt thinks he could buy a life raft.

Last week, Geyer received a call from a Temple Terrace neighbor who had seen the Champy signs. Geyer tried not to get his hopes up as he drove, remembering all the disappointing calls from people who had seen other black-and-white strays.

She got out of the car and called his name, then heard him meow in response. Champy stepped out into the driveway and she picked him up, overwhelmed by his soft purrs.

Geyer took him home – or at least to their temporary home. There she wrapped him in a feather boa.

Times photographer Jefferee Woo contributed to this report.

If you would like to contribute to Geyer and Schmidt’s recovery, they have a GoFundMe here.

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