ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Since completely renovating her Shore Acres home three years ago, Angela Fulks said it's flooded twice courtesy of Hurricanes Ida and Idalia.
“If the waters coming in, it’s gonna come. Just get a bunch of towels and say a lot of prayers,” she said.
Fulks was ready for more flooding from this weekend’s unexpected December storm. She even used her bowl technique that worked during Idalia.
“If we get water in the house, we have an extra 4-5 inches to protect the furniture.”
Thankfully, the storm surge waters only made it inside her garage this time.
But others around Shore Acres weren’t so lucky.
“It’s an attitude where I have seen it impact people directly where it could be worse than what we have it. So I’m just trying to do what we need to do and move forward from,” Fulks said.
The storm caused plenty of problems. Some of the storage units used to hold belongings during ongoing hurricane repairs flooded too. And we saw video showing flames shooting across power lines.
City crews in St. Petersburg hit different neighborhoods, assessing damage and the storm’s impact.
The Emergency Management Department told me that so far, it doesn’t appear the aftermath is to the caliber of Hurricane Idalia. And as we talked to people, we found the same. Many garages were flooded, but water did not make it inside very many homes.
Ryan Jennings is still fixing his house from Hurricane Idalia and is not sure how much more of this he can take before moving.
“It came real close. You can see it went right up to my garage line. In the back, the lower back area. It came real close,” said Jennings.
City officials say it doesn’t appear this latest storm will trigger any assistance from FEMA, but low-interest loans could be available to help with recovery.
To find out what resources are available, call Tampa Bay Cares at 211.
