HERNANDO COUNTY, Fla. — When storm surge from Hurricane Idalia began to creep in the car with Kory Smith and her son as they tried to escape their home on Pine Island in Hernando County on Wednesday, slight panic sat in.
"I was a little freaked out, but I just wanted to make sure that we got back safely," Smith said.
Smith said a dead battery stopped her from leaving her coastal home.
"We were trying to get out all day, but the battery on my car wouldn't start," she said. "When it finally did work, it was like a half an hour too late."
Smith said she and her son, Tyler, got halfway down the causeway and had to turn back because the water was getting too deep. Then they became stranded after deep water in the opposite direction stopped them in their tracks.
"The water started coming in like crazy. We almost like didn't make it back up to the bridge. [There] was water in our car and everything," she said.
The Hernando County Sheriff's Office deployed an airboat to rescue Smith and her son. 10 Tampa Bay's cameras were rolling as they were brought to safety.
"Everybody's safe and sound, but we would have preferred if they had evacuated the night before," Sheriff Al Nienhuis told 10 Tampa Bay. "It's really by the grace of God that the high water held off. If the storm would have been a little bit faster and would have gotten here a little sooner, we would have been dealing with this in the middle of the night."
Nienhuis himself was hands-on in a separate, but related rescue. A first responder with an empty boat trailer got stuck as water inundated the road while she was trying to turn around on the two-lane road leading to Bayport and Pine Island.
The trailer was carrying the boat used to rescue Smith and her son.
Though Sheriff Nienhuis and other first responders ultimately moved the trailer manually, he said it was a dangerous situation that could have been prevented if residents followed evacuation orders.
"It's easier to evacuate and not need to than realize you want to evacuate, but you're where we can't get to you," he said.
Nienhuis also said the flooding would only get worse later in the day as high tides come in.
Andrew Polino contributed to this report.