Treasure Island businesses gear up for busy Memorial Day weekend following devastating hurricanes
The Brief
Treasure Island businesses are gearing up for a busy Memorial Day weekend following last year's devastating hurricane season.
Parking lots on Treasure Island were filled with guests and out-of-town cars from near and far Friday afternoon.
It comes as signs of the recovery process are still visible after last year's hurricane season.
TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. - Businesses on Treasure Island are gearing up for a busy Memorial Day weekend following last year's devastating hurricane season.
Local perspective
"It's exciting," Bilmar Beach Resort General Manager Clyde Smith told FOX 13 of the holiday. "This weekend is going to be fantastic."
RELATED: Amid damage to hotels and restaurants, employees hope to return to work after Hurricane Helene
Business at the beach hotel – and its adjoining restaurant, Sloppy Joe's – was in full swing Friday.
"If you look out to the beach area, that's normal," Smith said. "The waves are rolling in. The cabanas are up. Our bicycles are out there."
Parking lots on Treasure Island were filled with guests and out-of-town cars from near and far Friday afternoon. But just seven months ago, those same spots were overflowing with damaged furniture, a sign of the devastation caused by the hurricanes.
PREVIOUS:Treasure Island's iconic Thunderbird Beach Resort announces total teardown after hurricanes
The backstory
Smith remembers like it was just yesterday: The Bilmar Beach Resort suffered significant damage to its first floor rooms.
"Well, I've never been through anything – in 47 years in the industry – like what happened last year," Smith added.
Dig deeper
Fast forward to Memorial Day weekend and there are still signs of the recovery process: The historic Thunderbird Beach Resort recently announced they're tearing everything down to start from scratch.
The family-owned Roth Hotel finally reopened their doors earlier this week.
READ: Family owned hotel in Sunset Beach reopens 8 months after Hurricane Helene: 'The place was decimated'
And while first-floor renovations continue at the Bilmar – guests will notice the hotel's front desk is currently in the lobby of Sloppy Joe's – Smith said they're in great shape for the holiday weekend.
"We actually had a lot of rooms available just 10 days ago, and we're going to sell out tonight. So we're excited with that," Smith told FOX 13. "We are still doing some recovery from the storm – just our first floors – but all our pools and our amenities are all open. So things are going well on the beaches."
Follow FOX 13 on YouTube
The Source
The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Ariel Plasencia.
WATCH FOX 13 NEWS:
STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA:
Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV
Download FOX Local mobile app:Apple |Android
Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines
Download the SkyTower Radar app
Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Wall Street Journal
42 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Treasury Yields Fall Amid Concerning Labor Data, Mild Inflation
0900 ET – U.S. labor and inflation data deepen a decline in Treasury yields. Weekly jobless claims were unchanged from the previous week's upwardly revised pace, at 248,000. Economists surveyed by WSJ expected 246,000. Continuing claims, a measure of the unemployed population, was 1.96 million, the highest level since November 2021. May's wholesale price inflation was 0.1%, accelerating from April's 0.2% deflation and below consensus of a positive 0.2%. The combination of slower-than-expected inflation and concerning labor data underscores bets that the Fed may need to change its hawkish position. Yields were already declining and fell further after the data. The 10-year Treasury yield is at 4.360% and the two-year at 3.891%. ( @ptrevisani) 0614 GMT – A downside surprise in U.S. CPI data gave only a small boost to Treasurys, probably because tariff-driven price hikes still look imminent, says Capital Economics' James Reilly in a note. That said, these price hikes look discounted in markets, shielding Treasury yields from rising pressure, the senior markets economist says. 'We don't expect much upwards pressure on Treasury yields even as the inflationary impact of tariffs eventually feeds into U.S. consumer prices,' he says. Capital Economics expects core inflation to rise in coming months but it thinks that investors are already braced for a broadly similar outcome on tariffs, he says. (


CBS News
43 minutes ago
- CBS News
Governor Wes Moore to announce initiative to lower energy costs in Maryland
Amid rising energy costs, Maryland Governor Wes Moore plans to announce a new initiative to lower energy costs Thursday morning. On Jan. 1, Baltimore Gas and Electric raised rates, increasing the average residential gas bill by 9% and the electric bill by 7%. The cost of energy in Maryland continued to rise BGE customers and state leaders publicly challenged the increases, which were a part of the company's planned multi-year utility rate hikes. In February, the Baltimore City Council called on state regulators to stop the increases, which totaled $602 million over the course of three years. BGE said the increase was necessary to cover the cost of continued investments in gas and electric distribution systems. In March, City Council President Zeke Cohen led a community walk, going door to door to collect signatures on a petition that asked the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) to stop the hikes. Some customers experienced price hikes larger than the stated increase rates, with some residents reporting that their winter bills climbed by more than $200. In response to the hikes, lawmakers passed a bill, the Next Generation Energy Act, which aims to reduce costs by directing the Public Service Commission to reject multi-year rate hikes that don't demonstrate customer benefit, and prohibiting utilities from charging ratepayers for certain expenses like trade association memberships and private planes. Why have energy costs increased? BGE said those additional increases seen by consumers were a result of an increase in the price of natural gas and increased gas usage. Then again on June 1, BGE's electricity cost to consumers rose by $16 monthly, which the company said was due to an unexpected spike in capacity auction prices and the Talen Energy reliability-must-run (RMR) fee. When BGE announced the increase, the Maryland General Assembly wrote a letter urging federal legislators to stop the increase. They blamed PJM Interconnection, the region's power grid operator, for miscalculating the supply and demand for electricity during the capacity market auction, a competitive bidding process where power companies promise to make their electricity generation available in the future.


Fox News
43 minutes ago
- Fox News
Fate of Trump's $9.4 billion spending cut package hangs on House GOP moderates
The fate of President Donald Trump's $9.4 billion spending cuts request could rest on the shoulders of a handful of moderate House Republicans. The House of Representatives is set to consider the measure on Thursday afternoon, which cuts $8.3 billion in funds to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and just over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which routes federal funds to NPR and PBS. But at least four GOP lawmakers are known to have expressed at least some concerns about various aspects of the package. House Republican leaders have a razor-thin, three-seat majority in the chamber, which means any dissent beyond that could sink the bill. None of the four Republicans – Reps. Mark Amodei, R-Nev.; David Valadao, R-Calif.; Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y.; and Don Bacon, R-Neb. – have said how they will vote on the bill, however. They also all approved a procedural vote to allow for debate on the measure. But Amodei, co-chair of the Public Broadcasting Caucus, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday afternoon that he was not worried about NPR and PBS' national brands, with which he acknowledged the GOP's bias concerns, and that his fear was gutting funding to smaller local outlets that rely on federal funding to keep people informed in areas with less access. "These aren't the people that are doing editorial boards that are flipping you the bird," Amodei argued to his fellow Republicans. "They're kind of important pieces of infrastructure in their communities." Amodei, who is intimately familiar with the government funding process as a House appropriator, said "a whole bunch of red counties" depend on public broadcast funding. "It's easier for the nationals to raise money if they've got to make up for some funding they lost than it is these guys," he said. Valadao, who represents a California swing district, told Politico he was not sure if the measure would pass. He declined to elaborate on his concerns to Fox News Digital, however, and his office did not respond to a request for clarification. Meanwhile, Malliotakis told reporters on Wednesday that she met with Republican voters in her district who wanted PBS funding preserved – but that her real concern was the process. "I think that there's a lot of questions that members have regarding what programs specifically are going to be cut. This is a broad look at general accounts. We are, at the end of the day, the Congress that holds the power of the purse. We're the ones who we're supposed to be identifying where funding is going. And this gives a lot of discretion to the White House to be doing that unilaterally without Congress," Malliotakis said. "I think there's a large number of members that do have concerns about that. And whether members are going to vote yes or no is a different story in this place. But I have, certainly, reservations…and we'll see how things go." Bacon, one of three House Republicans representing a district that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, told reporters Tuesday morning that he was feeling better about the legislation after getting assurances that the foreign aid cuts would not gut money for critical medical research. He did not say whether his earlier concerns about PBS and NPR were alleviated, however, nor did he say how he would vote on the bill. Bacon told reporters last week, "It does bother me, because I have a great rapport with Nebraska Public Radio and TV." Fox News Digital reached out both to Bacon directly and to his office for clarification on his current stance. The $9.4 billion proposal is called a rescissions package, a mechanism for the White House to block congressionally approved funding it disagrees with. Once transmitted to Capitol Hill, lawmakers have 45 days to approve the rescissions proposal, otherwise it is considered rejected. Such measures only need a simple majority in the House and Senate to pass. But that's no easy feat with Republicans' thin majorities in both chambers. If passed, Republican leaders hope the bill will be the first of several rescissions packages codifying spending cuts identified by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk set out with a goal of finding $2 trillion in federal waste, but wound up identifying about $180 billion. House GOP leaders lauded the proposal during their weekly press conference on Tuesday. "These are commonsense cuts. And I think every member of this body should support it. It's a critical step in restoring fiscal sanity and beginning to turn the tides and removing fraud, waste, and abuse from our government," Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said.