By Matthew Cimitile, University Communications and Marketing
Catherine Wilkins’ roots in St. Petersburg run deep.
A third-generation Floridian who was born, raised and still lives in west St. Petersburg, Wilkins is a historian with a fascination for local history and preservation. She serves on the advisory board for Sacred Lands, a non-profit based at the Jungle Prada archaeological site. The site features indigenous Tocobaga mounds and was the landing spot of the ill-fated Panfilo de Narvaez expedition in 1528.
Like many others, last year’s hurricane season had a profound personal impact on Wilkins.
“I grew up on St. Pete beach. My grandparents’ home was there, our family business, my church, my childhood school,” said Wilkins, who is professor of instruction in the USF Judy Genshaft Honors College on the St. Petersburg campus. “When we had our hurricanes last year, I saw all those places familiar to me underwater.”
Rescue activities after Hurricane Helene. Photo by City of St. Petersburg.
After months of recovery that included cleaning up debris and flooded structures at these familiar places, Wilkins began to wonder how she could lend her professional expertise to help her community.
That prompted her to launch an oral history project to feature a myriad of experiences by those impacted by the 2024 historic hurricane season.
“Oral histories are important in adding depth, emotion and meaning to what otherwise might just look like statistics, such as the cost of the storm or the number of buildings flooded,” she said. “Folks in the future won’t fully understand what this event meant unless we can preserve the stories of people who went through it.”
In late April, the first oral histories for the project were recorded during the event “Echoes of the Land: Hurricanes, History and Storytelling” at the restored Jungle Prada archaeological site. Ranging from surprise awakenings from rising floodwaters in the night to the struggle to rebuild in the aftermath of the storm, these personal stories touch on loss, change, fear and hope.
Wilkins plans to fully launch the Hurricane Histories project in earnest later this summer. She will work with the Gulf Beaches Historical Museum, which flooded during Helene, and other local institutions to identify individuals and collect stories that can provide a rich account of the natural disasters in Tampa Bay.
Next academic year, Wilkins will teach a class at USF St. Petersburg that engages undergraduate students in both producing oral histories and digitizing artifacts and architecture at risk due to damages from the storms. As the class wraps up, she hopes to launch an online platform that includes the collected stories and make it available as a public resource through USF Libraries Digital Collection.
Storm damage at Jungle Prada archaeological site.
“Such projects are an effective way to engage the public in caring about and learning about our history,” she said.
This isn’t Wilkins first foray into oral histories. She has taught classes that have worked with local libraries and museums to collect stories touching on the social, political and environmental issues impacting Pinellas County’s Gulf Beach communities over the years. Past projects have focused on issues from the history of civil rights to the impact of the pandemic on the hospitality industry to unusual Florida tourist attractions.
“I’ve learned that your neighbors have the most interesting stories to tell. People around you in the community are a rich resource for knowledge and information and their perspective should be considered right alongside scientific data,” she said.
Get involved and share your story for the hurricane oral history project