A letter written in 1945 from a naval base in Virginia wound up in a glass bottle more than 800 miles away in Florida, where it was found last week — nearly eight decades later — after Hurricane Debby swept a swath of the state.

The letter was addressed to someone named Lee from someone named Chris. But it was Suzanne Flament-Smith, 46, of Tampa, Fla., who found it on Wednesday.

By then, the storm had passed Florida, leaving a trail of debris in its path. In an interview on Monday, Ms. Flament-Smith said she was in Safety Harbor, Fla., just west of Tampa, on Wednesday when she saw how much litter the storm had left behind.

“There was so much trash,” she said, “water bottles, sunscreen bottles, Crocs, a lot of random articles, too.”

Ms. Flament-Smith, who keeps trash bags in her car, said she had extra time on Wednesday while her daughter was at volleyball practice, so she decided to clean up. She was filling up a third bag when she came across a bottle with a letter inside. She decided to wait until she got home to open the bottle.

“I didn’t want to open it there,” she said. “I wanted to be respectful of what was in it. I didn’t know what specifically was in it, so I wanted to make sure when I opened it, I was somewhere where I could keep all its contents.”