10/17/2026
As I am sure you are well aware, Hurricane Isaias made landfall in Destin on the night of October 9th only a few miles west of the cemetery as a Category 2 with winds of 105 MPH. The cemetery sustained considerable damage to its trees. Our tree company cleared the main roads the next day, but there is a substantial amount of work left to be done.
Board Member, Jeff Ragland, and I met with the head of the tree company this morning and surveyed the damage. It appears about seventy-five trees either fell or are damaged to the extent they need to be removed. As there are hundreds of other sites that need tree service, our company will work as fast as they can, but they estimate it will take 10 weeks to finish removing the trees, grinding the stumps, hauling off the debris and raking the grounds. They will begin work Tuesday (maybe even this Saturday) and there will be a couple big construction dumpsters rotating in and out on site. It will cost $45,000, which will come out of our perpetual care fund.
Until the work is totally completed, we strongly discourage you from visiting the cemetery. There are many dangling branches and teetering deadfall. Fortunately, it looks like very few headstones were impacted and the fences are undamaged. The vast majority of trees we lost were sand pines; few of the sand live oaks were injured. We will post pictures on our web page. We ask for your patience as the cleanup progresses.
Kind regards,
Dr. William G. Keyes, President
