Janalea England is a weather junkie. She loves watching a big storm roll in over the horizon of her hometown of Steinhatchee, Florida. “I just like to see mother nature let loose,” she says. That’s why she didn’t evacuate her Taylor County home during hurricanes Idalia in August 2023 and Debby in August 2024, and why she again stayed put last week, with Category 4 Helene on the way. But now, “I’ll never stay again,” she says.
Early Thursday evening, storm clouds blanketed the sky, the tide was unusually high, and Steinhatchee was eerily calm. Around 7:30 p.m., England was headed to a Steinhatchee staple, Roy’s Restaurant, when the winds picked up. Rapidly. “At that point, I immediately knew this was different,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I gotta get home. This is literally blowing me off the road.”
She felt safer back at her house, which sits on a concrete foundation about a mile and a half from the Gulf of Mexico. But around 10:00 p.m., England’s heavy-duty generator began to rock back and forth in the wind. “That’s when we looked at my son, and we’re like, ‘We’ve got to get to the safe room,’” she says, referring to the room all Floridians know well: the sturdiest, most window-free place in the home. But first, England and her family blocked their exterior door with every piece of heavy furniture they could find. “It was like the house was expanding, and everything was just shaking,” she says.
For hours, her house rocked as winds approached 140 miles per hour outside. “Everyone says it will sound like a freight train, and maybe it did with Idalia,” she says. But with Helene, “you could hear it above you, you could hear it below you, you could hear it to the sides. These are sounds I will never be able to describe.”
England couldn’t sleep that night, and as soon as dawn arrived, she ventured outside to assess the damage. Trees and power lines were strewn everywhere, and whole buildings, including Roy’s, had disappeared into the Gulf. She immediately broke down crying as memories of her life in Steinhatchee flooded back to her, every damaged building conjuring a different one. At the same time, the trauma of the night she’d just endured, and the good fortune she felt to be alive, washed over her. “I just had a lot of fear come over me. A wake-up, like, do you know what you just put yourself in?”
But England didn’t waste any time. Just as she did with Idalia, she got to work converting her business, Steinhatchee Fish Company, into a relief center.
Where fresh fish used to lie on ice, milk and other perishable items for the community now sit in their place. Instead of seafood products, her store shelves are stocked with canned goods, underwear, and detergent. “It doesn’t even smell like a fish market,” she says. “You walk in there and it smells like a Walmart.”
Police are patrolling her business to prevent looting, but she’s not worried about that prospect. What she does worry about is how long the fish market will have to serve as a makeshift relief hub—and how soon it might be called upon to do so again. After all, three hurricanes have hit the small town in a little over a year; after Idalia, she distributed essential supplies for months.
“Honestly, I just love my town and I love my people, and I want to help them,” she says. “We’re like brothers and sisters—we’ll fight like cats and dogs, but we get over it and we move on. Because we’re family in these small communities.”
Still, she’s exhausted. “We’ll get through it, but Steinhatchee’s never going to be the same. There’s some frustration, there’s aggravation, there’s hopelessness. And then you get some rest and you say, ‘You know what? We’re going to do it again. It may take a little longer, but we’re going to do it again.’ It’s part of living in Florida.”
To support England and her family while she gives up her business to provide hurricane relief, visit her fundraising page, or buy items off Steinhatchee Fish Company’s Amazon wish list for the community.