Englewood Beach Waterfest Canceled

The host event for the Offshore Powerboat Association’s combined national and world championships this year, Englewood Beach Waterfest set for November 15-17 has been canceled in the wake of the extensive damage caused by Hurricane Helene when it reached the Southwest Florida coast on September 26. The annual event’s board of directors reached the decision following a meeting this week as severe storm surge had flooded the Englewood Beach and Manasota Key areas.

The news was announced in a press release from the board of directors at noon (EST) today.

Englewood Beach is still struggling to recover from the damage left by Hurricane Helene. Photo courtesy Ray LaBadie

“We had to make the very difficult decision to cancel 2024 Waterfest, based on the timing of our annual event, which was set to take place just a few weeks from now,” said Jay Henderson, the president of the Englewood Beach Waterfest board of directors, in the release. “With all of the considerable damage to our community businesses, residential homes, and beachfront accommodations caused by the storm surge, we felt as a collective board that we could not execute the event without hindering the progress of rebuilding and repair that needs to take place here in our community. We have had so much community, volunteer and local government support for Waterfest throughout this entire year, with much of it coming from local business sponsors.”

The event faced the same fate in late-September 2022 when Hurricane Ian slammed into Englewood Beach and also devastated other areas in Southwest Florida, most notably Fort Myers Beach and portions of Cape Coral. Yet despite the challenges that included extensive cleanup and a habitable housing and lodging shortage in the area, the community pulled together and the November Offshore Powerboat Association World Championships were held as scheduled.

But this time around the challenges proved too formidable.

Said Henderson, “While it was a very tough decision to cancel, we knew it was the only responsible choice to make as residents and business owners ourselves, as we all remain ‘Englewood Strong.’”

The president of the Offshore Powerboat Association, Ed Smith could not be reached when this story went live.

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Source: https://www.speedonthewater.com/englewood-beach-waterfest-canceled/