SUNSET BEACH – Rachael Gray, whose brothers run the Gray Auto dealership in Greenfield, was building a beautiful life in Florida.
She and her partner, Kevin Castillo, had just renovated a two-story beach house where they lived with their four-month-old daughter, Olivia.
Then Hurricane Helene struck Sept. 26, washing away nearly everything they owned.
First floor dwellings aren’t insurable on Sunset Beach, and the couple – who had recently installed all new appliances – didn’t have renter’s insurance.
“Everything they had, every scrap of clothing, is gone,” said Gray’s best friend, Liz Pope of Greenfield, who has been posting a Go Fund Me campaign Gray’s sister started to help the young family recover.
But their troubles are far from over.
On Tuesday, Gray and her family were salvaging what they could as they prepared to evacuate for yet another powerful storm – Hurricane Milton – which forecasters have predicted will pack a far more powerful punch than Hurricane Helene, striking the western coast of Florida sometime Wednesday.
Gray moved to Florida with her mom, Michelle, to seek a fresh start after her father, Brad Gray, died by suicide in January 2019.
“After he passed away, it was really hard for my mom being in Greenfield – everything you see reminds you, it’s just really hard – so her and I came out here to do something that made us happy, which is being by the ocean,” Gray said.
Soon after moving to Florida, Gray met her partner, kite surfing instructor Kevin Castillo, and the two eventually spent three years living in Puerto Rico. Last year, they decided to move to Sunset Beach – just north of St. Pete – to manage the beach house her mother owns, renting out the second floor while renovating the lower level which would become their home.
Gray named the rental unit “The Bradley” after her dad.
They had barely gotten their renovations complete when Hurricane Helene struck, killing two people in Sunset Beach and more than 230 at last count throughout the Southeast as rescue and recovery efforts continue.
Hurricane Milton is expected to be even more deadly.
Brace for impact
As 140-mile-per-hour winds assaulted the coast less than two weeks ago with Hurricane Helene, Gray, her baby and Castillo – along with her mother and grandmother, who were visiting from the Clearwater area – all rode out the storm on the second story of their beach house.
As a new mom, all Gray could think about was keeping her infant daughter safe.
At some point, she was certain they were all going to die.
She had visions of storm victims clinging to treetops during the devastating tsunami that struck Thailand in 2004.
“I could imagine what they were thinking as we were just watching the water rise,” recalled Gray, 32.
“I was just holding my daughter and singing to her and crying, trying to hold it together because the water kept coming up. I was thinking, ‘What are we going to do? The current was so fast, there’s no way we can get out with a 4-month-old, an old woman (her grandma) with dementia, my mom and four dogs,’” she said. “Kevin was out on the front porch keeping an eye on (the storm) and I went into the bedroom and had a moment of panic kick in. I was especially thankful that I was breastfeeding, so we didn’t have to worry about bottles or formula, but I started thinking, ‘What if your nerves kick and you stop producing milk?’ The panic of everything set in. I called 911 and said it’s getting really bad out here, and they told us ‘There’s nothing we can do,’” she said.
All they could do was pray as the churning water moved further inland, keeping an eye on a marker they set up on a neighbor’s house closer to the shore. They later watched in shock as the house was swept off its foundation.
Without power and exhausted by stress, Gray and her family members tried to sleep when they could, peeking outside at the encroaching devastation whenever they awoke.
Her mother slept by the sliding door at the back of the home, counting the steps throughout the night as the water levels continued to rise toward the second story as the family rode out the storm.
Despite being 200 yards from the typical shoreline, Gray and Castillo watched as the water continued to rise and flood the streets around them, turning the roads into canals, the force of the water sending Gray’s car crashing into their house.
“The wind was whipping around so strong, but what was even more loud was the things breaking,” said Gray, who watched helplessly as seven feet of stormwater and sewage flooded into the first floor of her home.
“Our couch, our bed, our TV were all swirling around downstairs. You could hear it down there like a washing machine, and there was nothing I could do but listen to it,” she said.
Thankfully, the waters began to recede around 11 p.m. without ever reaching the second floor.
Feeling blessed
Gray counts herself lucky, knowing many of her neighbors didn’t fare as well. One nearby family with two young sons were forced to evacuate during the flood. Some elderly neighbors rode out the storm alone.
Even as she and Castillo emptied the waterlogged contents from their home and prepared to evacuate to her mother’s house on Monday, Gray was focused on helping others.
She took a moment from a phone call with the Daily Reporter to thank a friend she had summoned to help one of Gray’s neighbors – a widow in her late 80s who endured Hurricane Helene’s brutal pounding in the three-story house she and her husband built some 50 years ago.
“You guys are awesome!” Gray shouted to her friend, Sharon, who was carrying the elderly widow’s cats to her car, preparing to drive the neighbor to her home to ride out the next storm further from shore.
“I’m just so happy she was able to convince her to leave,” said Gray. “The coolest part is they didn’t even know each other before, but now this old lady has a new friend.”
Gray’s selflessness in the face of a storm is no surprise to Pope, who has long admired her friend’s resilient spirit.
The two have been best friends since meeting as second graders at Weston Elementary in Greenfield, and graduated from Eastern Hancock High School together in 2010.
“She’s usually the person looking out for everybody else,” said Pope, who shared that Gray and Castillo have been focused on helping their neighbors, even after losing everything they own to last month’s storm.
“She’s never had the mindset to lay down and lick your wounds,” said Pope. “If the roles were reversed, she would be talking about what an absolute disaster I was, but she’s not like that. She’s more the type to figure it out and keep going. When I told her I wanted to share her story, she said there’s so many people who have it so much worse. I said, ‘You don’t own a single possession. What do you mean it’s worse for somebody else down the street?’”
With Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida’s west coast – expected to be one of the worst storms of the century – Pope said all she can do is wait and worry about her friend.
Gray’s family faced a setback Monday when her mom was refused a rental car she had reserved because she only had a debit card, not a credit card, so the family and their four dogs loaded into separate Ubers to make the one-hour trek north to Michelle Gray’s home in Tarpon Springs.
The town northwest of Tampa was listed as a Category D evacuation area as of Tuesday afternoon, meaning evacuation is not mandatory.
Tampa, however, has been targeted as an area to likely be hit by the eye of the hurricane.
As Gray and her family hunker down to prepare for the storm, Pope continues to hope and pray for her friend.
“They are hoping their house is going to still be there (after Hurricane Milton hits), but if it’s as bad as they say it’s going to get, they could be coming home to a total loss upstairs,” said Pope, who has shed a lot of tears this week worrying about her best friend.
“The big thing you can do is pray. Pray they weather the storm,” she said.
To contribute to the Go Fund Me set up for Gray’s family, visit gofundme.com/f/Castillograys?qid=a895e92804753324d3e7c04c4619e43d.
