He was a 10-year-old with a broken arm when he was first introduced to orthopedics. Now, Dr. John Marquardt is approaching 50 years in medicine, with most of that time dedicated to treating bones and joints.
He’s an orthopedic surgeon at Tampa's James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital, primarily performing knee and hip replacements.
His beach house in Clearwater Beach has been gutted since Hurricane Helene brought a record-high storm surge in late September.
“We’re on Devon Drive on Clearwater Beach, which is right across from the Clearwater Marina," Marquardt said.
Marquardt grew up in this neighborhood.
“We built our family home in 1941, seven houses down the street from where we’re sitting right now. And I remember climbing the Australian pine trees when I was growing up.”
Now, the oceanfront street has dozens of homes and yards dotted with palm trees. It’s in a high-risk flood zone, according to FEMA flood maps.
“We’re sitting in what was our living room before Hurricane Helene came in and pretty much destroyed everything inside.”
Helene's storm surge reached 6.7 feet, according to the National Hurricane Center.
And Marquardt said most of the single-level homes in his neighborhood flooded — his included.
“We had 3 feet of water in our home. … We have no idea how long the water was in our home. We weren’t able to see the damage until two days after the storm,” he said.
Marquardt and his wife had evacuated. Upon returning, they said, the mud, sand and debris made navigating their street treacherous work.
“When we finally got to our home … we opened the door and saw the damage.”
“There was mud all over/ … It was obvious that all of the furniture had floated around at some point in time. … The refrigerator in the garage … had tipped over, and it kind of acted like a bowling ball.”
Returning to work had challenges of its own, Marquardt said.
“I think in medicine, one of the big challenges is that you always have to make your patients’ concerns your No. 1 priority,” he said. “You have to put aside … you own personal conflict, tragedies, emotions. … But we’re all human beings, and sometimes you don’t do that as perfectly as you probably should.”
His first week back, Marquardt said he remembers the kindness and concern of his colleagues. He also recalls preemptively apologizing to patients in case his phone rang.
“I said, ‘I apologize, but this is what happened to us and I need to know if somebody from the insurance company or the restoration team or Duke power … might be need to get in touch with me.”
Long days at work were followed by longer nights and weekends, he said.
“I found that physically and emotionally, I was really exhausted by the time I got home … and one of the duties that we were charged with was to fill out a spreadsheet of all our content losses.”
Marquardt and his wife itemized 200 belongings that were claimed by Helene. Among them were precious wedding albums of his five children and nine grandkids, he said.
“Every once in a while, you think about those things, but you're just grateful that you still have the memory. And it's interesting that many times during the night, you know, if I'm awoken, [and] I'm having a little trouble getting back to sleep, I'll remember a lot of these photographs.”
For now, Marquardt said, he’s in a holding pattern. Since Helene, he’s been living at his apartment in Tampa, which he rented long before the storm. It offers quicker access to and from the hospital than their primary residence at the beach, which Marquardt said he’s decided to restore — eventually.
Sitting at a folding table where his family usually gathers for Thanksgiving dinner, he said that gratitude is what’s getting him through lately.
“The definition (of gratitude) is: when what you have is more than enough.”
This audio postcard is part of a series on people's experiences returning to work after a series of powerful storms in the 2024 hurricane season. Click here to read other stories in the series from WUSF.
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