ZEPHYRHILLS, Fla. — Deanna Daniels showed us cell video she shot on October 15 of last year. She was wading through her flooded home in Zephyrhills.
“I don’t think people get it until you live through that and you are walking through your house with a kayak,” she said.
Daniels and much of her Silver Oaks neighborhood flooded after Hurricane Milton. But the water didn’t leave.
WATCH: Zephyrhills residents fearful for next hurricane season
Along with the historic flooding, many blame faulty drainage systems and too much development in the surrounding areas.
“A lot of times, when they are flooding, it’s in and then it’s out. We didn’t have that. There were homes that were flooded for weeks,” said Daniels.
We were here two weeks after the storms, when Jamie Curtis still couldn’t get inside his house.
Then we returned in November as he began the long process of gutting and renovating.
“Everything had to go,” Curtis said.
Now, it looks much different.
And things are slowly getting back to normal, but Curtis is fearful with hurricane season upon us again.
“I tell you, I don’t know if there’s a word for it… apprehension? Did I just spend $300 and some thousand dollars to do this again? I can’t do it again.”
“It is very, very traumatic on the fabric of a community when something like this happens, and it depends on every community member to weave together and hold us together to the other side,” said Silver Oaks HOA President Al Tesini.
Daniels said after going through so much, she doesn’t know if she could start over again if another major hurricane hits.
“I don’t think I could. It took so much of us. All of us. And different things that you never thought you would see or do, trying to save your home and trying to save your things and your dream,” said Daniels.
