When Hurricane Helene barreled ashore last week, it caused devastating flooding across the southeastern U.S., including in the Shore Acres area of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Russ Lewis has picked up some strange things along the coast of Long Beach Peninsula in Washington state over the years: Hot Wheels bicycle helmets with feather tufts, life-size plastic turkey decoys made for hunters, colorful squirt guns, and Crocs — so many mismatched Crocs.

Sixty-five percent believe costs would be $5,000 or less, the data showed, and 20% think they'd recover in under a month...