With recorded 120 mph winds, Category 3 Hurricane Jeanne came ashore Sept. 25, 2004, just three weeks after Category 2 Hurricane Frances hit Sept. 5 - and in roughly the same spot in Sewall's Point in Martin County - complicating relief efforts and leading to widespread damage to homes and shorelines.
Jeanne had made a complete 360-degree loop-the-loop in the Atlantic before strengthening into a Category 3 hurricane and heading to the Stuart area. Outer bands lashed St. Lucie and Indian River counties with high wind and rain.
Battered residents were just starting to get their electricity back after some were without for weeks, when Jeanne barreled in and took it out again, as well as whatever Frances had left untouched.
"Jeanne certainly took advantage of having a whole lot of debris already on the ground and throwing a lot of debris around," said Keith Holman, who was Martin County's director of emergency management at the time.
Jeanne destroyed thousands of homes and caused an estimated billions of dollars in damage locally, and led to the death of two people on the Treasure Coast.
It's only the second time two major storms made landfall in nearly the same place on the Treasure Coast in nearly 150 years. In 1871, a Category 2 storm landed Aug.17 south of Jupiter Island and a Category 3 followed Aug. 25 with a landfall north of Hobe Sound, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Historical Hurricane Track records dating back to 1859.
One hundred thirty three years later, Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne landed in the same region and also as Category 2 and 3 storms, respectively. The eye of both hurricanes was on Hutchinson Island near the House of Refuge.
How does that happen? Steering current similarities are always possible, according to TCPalm's archives in 2018. Weather patterns during that year's peak hurricane season resembled those in 2004 with what were described as steering currents or steering patterns that moved storms that reached the Lesser Antilles towards the Gulf or Southeast Coast. But, despite the similarities to 2004, 2018 did not see a repeat of Frances and Jeanne.
Jeanne was the eighth hurricane of the 2004 storm season and the last of four major storms on the Treasure Coast, earning Florida the title that year of Plywood State - a play on Sunshine State.
Hurricanes hit 20 years ago, but still not far from memory
"Every aspect of that storm touched St. Lucie County back in 2004," said Sonji Hawkins.
The lifelong St. Lucie County resident is assistant director for the St. Lucie County Public Safety Department and in 2004 was an office manager with the St. Lucie County Health Department.
"Everybody experienced the same thing when it came to the food shortages," she said. "The grocery stores were closed; everybody's trying to get water; everybody's trying to get everything so we all were affected."
She said nearly all homes were covered with blue tarps as temporary roofing, that by helicopter, looked like a 'sea of blue.' Both storms damaged the roof of the St. Lucie County Civic Center at Virginia Avenue and North 25th Street in Fort Pierce, and led to its closure.
"Everybody remembers the blue tarps that started to go up and the generators that you could hear from a distance," said Vero Beach Police Chief David Currey, who was captain of the department's patrol operations in 2004, and oversaw police response to the storm.
Holman, who retired in 2011, said in his 35 years at the Martin County emergency management agency, Jeanne (and Frances) were the only storms to have a direct hit on the Treasure Coast.
"There may have actually been more damage done by Jeanne," he said.
"There was roof damage done in quite a few locations (and) beaches were pretty well wrecked because of the blowing wind and damage from two different directions in that short of a period of time."
For homes, businesses, structures large and small, roofs were peeled away, and some collapsed while vegetation was stripped of foliage and trees uprooted.
The back-to-back storms shocked some homeowners, who began repairs after Frances only to have Jeanne undo their work, Currey said.
He recalled flooding led to the emergency evacuation of residents at Fairlane Harbor off Indian River Boulevard in Vero Beach at the corner of 17th Street and the Alma Lee Loy Bridge.
"That was when the water over there on the boulevard came up waist high," said Currey. "(Police) went over there and ... brought people out of their manufactured homes and saved a number of people, to be honest with you, that could have easily drowned and or washed out to the river."
The storm damaged several trailers which at that time housed some Martin County Sheriff's Office operations.
It was after Jeanne that plans for a new, larger Martin County Emergency Operations Center were approved, that would house the Sheriff's Office, fire rescue and emergency management operations in one complex.
Rachel Ivey was assistant to the director of emergency services in Indian River County in 2004, and is now a senior emergency planner.
"The two storms hitting so close together was a very different type of EOC activation," she said. "Normally after an activation for a disaster, you eventually get to have rest because you go on shifts. But just as we were doing that, Jeanne hit."
Far-reaching damage beyond destroyed homes
Reports from the National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service Melbourne, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Assurance and Florida Department of Environmental Protection documented the effects of Hurricane Jeanne.
The storm caused extensive damage to shorelines, buildings and coastal roads throughout the Treasure Coast damaging homes, undermining condos and in some instances entirely washing away beachside parks.
According to Florida Department of Environmental Protection, both storms resulted in "the most extreme erosion seen along the east coast of Florida in recent memory."
In Vero Beach, all of Wabasso Beach Park washed away from its shoreline to parking lot with park buildings collapsed.
Jeanne nearly swept away an entire stretch of Ocean Drive near Conn Boardwalk and sent storm surge and sand over State Road A1A and U.S. 1 in areas across the Treasure Coast.
In Martin County sections of MacArthur Boulevard were either damaged or destroyed between House of Refuge and Bathtub Beach.
Some areas in Indian River and St. Lucie counties reported 80 feet of shore erosion and 12-feet-high storm surge. Between 30 and 50 feet of dune erosion was recorded in Bob Graham, Jensen and Bathtub beaches in Martin County.
"(Jeanne also) greatly impacted the citrus industry resulting in 70% of grapefruit crops lost, 50% of oranges (early to mid-season oranges, navels, and valencias), and 9,000 acres destroyed due to canker spread attributed to hurricane winds," Ivey said.
Hawkins, Holeman and Ivey all recalled going weeks without electricity.
Assessments of the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant after Jeanne passed showed "its discharge canal (was) threatened with breaching ...... and an ...intake canal had erosion to its interior ...," FPL spokesperson Jack Eble said.
It underwent a "controlled shutdown" ahead of Jeanne, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Power plants in both Martin and Palm Beach counties were damaged and temporarily shut down.
Still, "FPL's nuclear power plants are specifically designed and built to withstand flooding, storm surges and other extreme weather conditions that can accompany hurricanes," Eble said.
In Indian River County, seven emergency services stations, one law enforcement facility, two nursing homes, and one assisted living facility received major damage, Ivey said.
Nearly 8,500 residences were destroyed or sustained major damage and 41,000 had minor damage.
Martin County had nearly 1,500 residences with major damage, 3,000 with minor and just under 200 considered destroyed. St. Lucie County's residential damage totals were less clear, but at least 40 coastal structures including homes, condos and commercial buildings were destroyed or sustained major damage.
A total of nearly 17,000 residences and buildings were damaged on the Treasure Coast, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
And there were two deaths.
An older woman was hospitalized and died from injuries she sustained after being thrown to the ground when wind blew the door of her residence open as she tried to leave for an evacuation shelter, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Two days after landfall, a 34-year-old truck driver died from electrocution when he exited his truck after running over a power line.
Jeanne would cost Indian River County an estimated $2 billion in damages, St. Lucie $1.2 billion and Martin County $50 million, according to NWS.
Hurricane Jeanne details*
Landfall: 11 p.m., Sept. 25 on the southern end of Hutchinson Island just east of Stuart
Strength at landfall: Category 3, 120 mph winds. A swath of hurricane-force winds was felt for about 90 miles along Florida's east coast, from near Cape Canaveral south to near Stuart.
Wind gusts: The highest wind gust reported from Florida was 127 mph at Fort Pierce Inlet and a 121-mph gust was in Vero Beach.
Rainfall: Widespread rainfall of up to 8 inches accompanied Hurricane Jeanne as it moved across eastern, central and northern Florida. A narrower band of 11 to 13 inches was observed in the vicinity of Osceola, Brevard and Indian River counties. Around 11 inches was observed over extreme northeast Florida within Duval and Nassau counties.
Storm surge: Storm surge flooding of up to 6 feet above normal tides likely occurred along the Florida east coast from the vicinity of Melbourne south to Fort Pierce.