Tuesday, October 15, 2024
SARASOTA, Florida — One former Azle and Lake Worth denizen diarized her experiences to nearly two million Facebook followers after two major hurricanes swept through the southeast. Courtney Rosencrantz then spoke over the phone with the Tri-County Reporter to give a recap of events and talks about life after leaving Azle.
She struck it big on Facebook almost a decade ago, amassing 1.5 million followers and changing her life forever. Today, she still posts money saving tips, diet advice and words of motivation to the many that keep tabs on her. Rosencrantz, whose maiden name is Luper, spent much of her life in the Azle area, where she was born, and graduated from Lake Worth High School. During a fateful trip to Florida, she met up with one her fans and the two started a relationship that quickly bloomed into marriage in the summer of 2018, and she left Texas and headed to Florida with her husband.
On Sept. 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall. It was the strongest hurricane on record to strike the Big Bend region of Florida, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Maria in 2017, and the deadliest to strike the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005. Less than two weeks later, another tropical storm would strike Florida further south, in Rosencrantz’ neck of the woods. Hurricane Milton was downgraded from Category 5 to Category 3 before making landfall at Siesta Key Oct. 9. Fitch analysts estimate $30 to $50 billion in damages occurred as a result of Milton with as many as two dozen reported dead and more than one million Florida residents temporarily without power.
The Rosencrantzes live in Sarasota; they were right in the bullseye. However, they were just outside the mandatory evacuation zone and decided to ride the storm out.
At first, Rosencrantz thought the impact of the storm might have been exaggerated by the media in its buildup. The downpour and strong winds she experienced were nothing she hadn’t seen before living in the Sunshine State. The calm she experienced in the middle of the storm brought with it a new kind of fright.
“It was very eerie during the eye,” Rosencrantz said. “It was very eerie outside. I mean, it was almost that feeling of you were in a scary movie, and it was just this stillness around everywhere. During that, the wind started coming back, and my husband told me, ‘Courtney, we're in the eye. This happens, the wind is going to shift directions. Get your selfie, whatever, but you're probably going to come back inside.’”
During the second half, she said the storm had renewed strength and eventually blew her door off its hinges letting wind and water inside. In that time, Rosencrantz said she had never seen such a look of fear on her husband’s face. For 45 minutes, the pair braced themselves against the door to keep the wet whirlwind from tearing through their home. Eventually, she was able to briefly slip away to move the heaviest piece of furniture in the house, a large massage chair, up against the door. The Rosencrantzes spent the next hour having to sit in the chair to keep the door from blowing open and pushing the chair aside. Surveying the damage the next morning, she said the family had also lost an old fence and some trees. While they did not lose power, she did report losing internet after the necessary components were ripped out of the ground and blown away.
Even with her eerie experience in the eye and the exhausting, aching aftermath of acting as a barricade to her home, Rosencrantz said she got out of it relatively unscathed. Living in Sarasota, a short drive from where the storm made landfall, she saw firsthand the difference a couple miles or a couple minutes could have in a hurricane. While her household was ultimately fine, she said the same isn’t true for other neighborhoods just 15 minutes away.
“When the wind shifted directions, the way that our house is facing, it was the best direction for us to be able to sustain that much wind,” Rosencrantz said. “Had it gone the other direction in that second half, I think it would have tore up our pool cage, like one of several of our neighbors. I was going around the neighborhood, their pool cages are like pretzels … I even did a Facebook reel showing some of the debris at one of the neighborhoods not too far, just to show people. I mean, half their house is out by the curb because of (Hurricane Helene). You know, nobody's picked this up yet.”
Even with the darkness and gloominess of two back-to-back hurricanes, Rosencrantz reported seeing a lot of good come out of it as well. Before the storm, her husband went to Lowes and bought up a large supply of plywood. When he returned, she said they shared the plywood and many of her neighbors helped each other all board up their windows.
“What made me the happiest though, before all this happened, was just seeing our whole neighborhood and community just coming together and helping each other on yesterday morning,” she said. “It was really awesome. It made me really feel happy to be part of just this neighborhood.”
If you’d like to follow Rosencrantz, look for @Courtney Luper (Rosencrantz) on Facebook; @just1courtney on Instagram; or @courtneyluper on TikTok.
