Two years after Hurricane Helene pushed several feet of storm surge into South Hillsborough County, the Firehouse Cultural Center in Ruskin is back in business — but not before taxpayers and private donors together covered a repair bill north of $300,000.

The nonprofit arts center, which sits near an area that took on roughly four feet of floodwater during Helene, saw its clay studio submerged under 3½ feet of saltwater and sewage. Pottery wheels, kilns, drywall, flooring and furniture were all wrecked in the flooding.

“It was devastating,” said Chris Bredbenner, the center’s executive director. “It was saltwater, septic water, mud and a whole big mess.”

Because the buildings themselves belong to Hillsborough County, the recovery leaned in part on county emergency funds — meaning local taxpayers picked up a share of the tab for a facility they don’t personally use. The rest of the more than two years of on-and-off repair work was funded through community fundraisers and private donations, the kind of grassroots support that ultimately did as much to bring the center back as any government check.

Bredbenner said his staff moved fast in the storm’s immediate aftermath, without waiting on red tape. “We had the service restoration company in here within hours the next day,” he said. “And my team, a small team of maintenance folks and volunteers, pushing everything out.”

Some scars remain. The kilns still bear rust from the flooding, even after repairs, though the pottery wheels were replaced outright.

Today, potters are back at the wheel making everything from bowls to holiday gnomes. Resident Dottie Cesario summed up the studio’s attitude toward the setbacks that come with the craft — and, fittingly, the recovery itself. “Do you ever mess up? Yeah,” she said. “But our saying around here is, ‘It’s just mud.’ So we just throw it away and start over.”

The center’s main building across the street, which houses classrooms, a community theater, meeting space and offices, also required extensive repairs before reopening.

For Bredbenner, the payoff came at one of the center’s recent shows. “Somebody said, ‘Well, you’ve built back beautifully.’ And I think that summed it up,” he said.

The center continues to host theater and music performances, pottery classes and community meetings — a reminder that while government emergency funds played a role, it was local residents, donors and volunteers who did the heavy lifting to bring their community center back.

More information on the Firehouse Cultural Center’s programs is available at firehouseculturalcenter.org.

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