It was a typical assignment for Douglas R. Clifford — as typical as bracing for a hurricane landfall can be. From a hotel room in Tallahassee, Florida, the Tampa Bay Times photojournalist and his reporting partner — investigative reporter Zachary T. Sampson — watched the local news. From their computers and phones, they monitored Hurricane Helene’s path.
“We were planning our landfall approach to south of Tallahassee because we like to study the roads, analyze the landfall zone, and make a decision on our penetration to the coast,” Clifford said. “That’s just our typical workflow.”
Then Clifford got a text from his wife.
“Doug, I’m scared.”
Clifford’s wife and their three children had evacuated from their home in Palm Harbor ahead of the storm, so they were safe. But now, as Helene skirted the Tampa Bay area by less than 100 miles on Sept. 26, she sent him an image from the camera that monitored their yard. And one from the inside of their home. Water was flooding their house. Though it was built in the 1930s, Clifford said the house had never had water in it.
“All the blood drained from my head. I stopped thinking about landfall,” Clifford said. “All I could think about was getting back to my home and my family.”
The surge came several blocks inland and was well over eight feet. The photojournalist was taken by surprise. “I had all the confidence that my home was not going to receive storm surge. But as the storm continued to prove that it was a leviathan and that it was defying statistics, it was outside of the gamut for prediction — the weathermen even seemed perplexed.”
Clifford was hundreds of miles from home. He had a very honest conversation with Sampson. “I told him how I was feeling. I told him, I said, ‘My home has water in it now.’”
Clifford and Sampson were the landfall team for the Tampa Bay Times. As the newspaper’s “go team one,” they have covered many hurricanes together – documented their aftermath. Clifford knew they needed to get to the coast. They had been deciding between several towns — among them Keaton Beach or Steinhatchee. That had been the plan.
Sampson, Clifford said, didn’t hesitate. “He’s probably on the biggest storm of the century and 30 miles from landfall, and Zack was able to pause and contemplate my situation, and support me.”
Sampson could tell Clifford was going through a rough moment. “Initially he was saying to me, ‘I’ll need to get home as quickly as we can. So we’ll go cover landfall, and then we need to get home. I need to get home to deal with this and manage this,’” Sampson said. “But it was clear. I would have been the same way in that situation, and I would have needed him to shake me loose.”
They contacted the Times, including their editor, Rebecca Woolington. The reporter-photojournalist duo was given the directive to return.
Tampa Bay Times editor Mark Katches, who oversees the newsroom, said there were really no second thoughts about it. Everyone felt Clifford should be back home with his family and take care of this situation.
“And of course, Zack was with him, and there was really no other choice but for them both to leave. And then we made a plan to cover the storm without our two star hurricane reporters and photographer,” Katches said. “I liken it to the Bucs losing Baker Mayfield and Vita Vea — their two star players — before the game starts. You just have to figure out how to compensate for that loss. And the newsroom stepped up.”
Sampson said he’s worked many storms with Clifford. They’ve grown close. “And in that moment, his family matters the most. And I know that the editors felt the same way,” Sampson said. “And so it was a difficult decision, but it also was a decision we were able to make pretty quickly. Because there was a clear right answer here, which is we have to be people first and we need to get him home.”
It took the reporter and photojournalist nine hours to drive back to the Tampa Bay area. They got stuck on I-10 for four and a half hours. They barely slept.
When they finally made it, Sampson dropped off Clifford at home. What he found was much worse than he had anticipated.
“I’ve covered dozens of storms — dozens of storms. And I’ve met hundreds of people that have been directly impacted at my threshold, or even at a significantly greater amount of damage than me. And you know there’s a certain amount of protection with the camera, and when you’re not directly affected. You kind of consume their situation objectively, and you document that and you do the best you can to tell that story,” Clifford said. “I can say this now: I don’t believe you can ever truly relate unless you’ve been affected the way I was affected by Hurricane Helene that night. Because when I arrived home, it was just a moment of loss that I have not experienced before.”
They lost furniture, a car, several interior appliances, a riding lawn mower, the central air conditioning system. Clifford said several inches of water came inside the house, which means that the drywall that came in contact with seawater needs to be torn out. Not only is that salt water corrosive to electronics and electronic wires, Clifford added, but it’s loaded with pesticides, fuel, sewage and nitrates.
The gravity of the damage and the work in front of Clifford sunk in. He felt nauseous. He needed to sit down.
It took him most of the day to navigate his sorrow, and then to motivate himself to take his first step, which was to remove all the wet items out of the property.
In his career, Clifford has dealt with harrowing experiences. He once lost a vehicle in a hurricane and had to rescue himself.
“I’ve had moments where I thought, ‘Well, I might not make it out of this.’ But it’s a very different experience when your own environment has been ravaged — if that makes sense,” he said. “Water is the great equalizer. It goes wherever it wants to go. You’re never going to stop it, and it’s a ubiquitous risk. It’s always there.”
Days after the storm, Katches — with the help of Sampson and reporter Emily L. Mahoney — launched a GoFundMe campaign for Clifford. “It’s a close-knit newsroom, it’s an extended family, and we wanted to help one of our own who was dealing with a lot of loss,” Katches said. “And we have a couple of other folks who are in bad circumstances as well, and we’re trying to do some things for them, too, but Doug was the hardest hit. And I think everybody felt we wanted to do something to help him.”
Donations and support have poured in from colleagues, former colleagues and even sources. When Clifford spoke with Poynter late Tuesday morning, the donation total was just shy of its $15,000 goal. Clifford said he doesn’t typically ask for help and was astounded by what he described as an incredible outpouring of compassion and support. He saw names on the fundraiser of lives he’s come in contact with throughout his journalism career.
Clifford said he’s uninsured and doesn’t have a lot of expendable income or savings.
“I’m just a grain of sand in this great mosaic of destruction,” he said. “And I know this is going to be a $100 billion storm, and my little story is very minimal in the grand scope of the significant and exponential property damage that some people experience — and even the loss of life.”
Still, he wanted to make a point to say that the support he and his family received has been overwhelming. It’ll cover some necessary repairs to their home. Clifford and his wife are now focused on disassembling their house, sorting through damaged personal items, and assessing the inundation and how it affected the electric work in the house.
Less than a week after the storm, the fundraising goal for Clifford and his family had been surpassed.
