September 2024<\/a> storm flooded and heavily damaged the more than 100-year-old building.<\/p>\nThe storm surge washed out the bar and left furniture and equipment piled into what staff described as a mangled mess of metal inside the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you first walk in, there’s so much damage. It’s complete devastation,\u201d said William Hinton, general manager of Hurricane Eddie\u2019s. \u201cBut when you don’t know where to start, you kind of just start somewhere, and it got better day by day. Now, it\u2019s better than it\u2019s ever looked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crews had to make major structural repairs before the bar could reopen. Workers cut off the roof, rebuilt damaged walls and reinforced the historic wooden structure with stronger materials to make the building sturdier than before.<\/p>\n
The rebuilding process took nearly a year and a half.<\/p>\n
At one point, Hinton said he wasn\u2019t sure the bar would survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire bar itself was completely washed out. All of the seating was crammed into a corner,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought it would be condemned for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the uncertainty, many employees stayed connected to the business during the closure. Ownership reassigned some workers to other locations while others helped with the rebuilding effort.<\/p>\n
Now the bar is packed again with locals celebrating its return.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what I like about this place? Gulfport is a great community,\u201d said patron Anthony Ziemak. \u201cAnd we\u2019re so lucky that finally we have Hurricane Eddie\u2019s opened up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hinton says the reopening represents more than just the return of a neighborhood bar \u2014 it\u2019s a sign of the community\u2019s resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s awe-inspiring,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve done took a lot of work from a lot of really hard-working people on our team. We\u2019re just appreciative to them and happy that we’re back.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a quiet spring break season last March, following the hurricanes, those at Hurricane Eddie\u2019s are hoping the bar\u2019s comeback will help bring visitors back to Gulfport\u2019s waterfront.<\/p>\n
For locals, though, the most important thing is simply having their favorite gathering spot back.<\/p>\n
\u201cGulfport is very resilient,\u201d Ziemak said. \u201cI had no doubt they\u2019d come back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bar reopened just in time for the spring break rush. GULFPORT, Fla. \u2014 One of Gulfport\u2019s most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-192998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}