Hurricane Helene

I’m writing this post on a Saturday afternoon at my mom’s house. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the roads are dry. It makes what happened on Thursday evening feel like it was in another lifetime.

When I went to bed on Thursday evening, I had a TGIF post scheduled to publish on Friday morning. In the post, I talked about how little Hurricane Helene affected me. I had power and Internet, the roads were clear around me, and I felt positive I would wake up to a normal life on Friday.

Right before going to bed, though, I decided to peek out my window to see how the roads looked. I knew the predicted storm surge was estimated to hit from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. We’ve been warned about storm surge before but since the hurricane was 110 miles offshore, I wasn’t too worried about it. This isn’t a direct hit! We’ll be fine! Oh, how wrong I was.

By the time all was said and done, my town of St. Petersburg endured catastrophic, historic flooding. Thursday’s storm surge blew our previous most historic surge out of the water. This one was nearly 7 ft (the previous record was 4 ft in 1985). And yes, it affected us greatly.

Including me, as when I peeked out the window, I could see that our parking lot was beginning to flood. It wasn’t too bad at first, maybe an inch or two. It was enough to submerge the bottom edge of a car’s tire, but nothing too problematic. When I looked again a few minutes later, the flooding had gotten worse. People were starting to drive their cars up the embankment above our parking lot to try to get to higher ground, but I couldn’t see how I could do the same with my Kia Soul. (I’ll say here: I really, really wish I had tried. But I didn’t know if my car had that kind of power. This is one of the few times I wish I had a male partner because it was truly all of the men out there, moving their cars up to higher ground.)

(Gladys is the third car!)

I tried not to worry too much. “You’ll deal with it in the morning,” I told myself. “It’s just a car.” And I wasn’t alone—our parking lot was filled with cars all dealing with the same issue.

Around 11 p.m., I lost Internet and around midnight, my power went out. As I write this post, it’s still out (40 hours and counting!). My energy company estimates that it will be back around midnight Monday morning.

The whole night, I was a wreck. Car alarms kept going off due to the flooding and every time it happened, I had to get up and make sure it wasn’t my car. (It never was.) It was warm in my apartment due to the power outage, making it hard to sleep. I was refreshing the Facebook feed of my favorite Tampa meteorologist and spiraling as I read all of the comments (although there was sort of a “we’re all in this together” feeling to the comments talking about flooded cars and homes and boats just floating around parking lots). And I couldn’t stop looking outside to see how bad the flooding had gotten. I took this photo of my neighbor’s car and that shows you the water line—we easily had a few feet of water in our parking lot. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. I’ve lived in this complex since 2016 and have weathered many storms, and this is the worst thing I have experienced.

I woke up around 6 a.m. on Friday morning. The water had fully receded at that time and I could see that people were already outside airing out their cars. Doors open, hoods open, trunks open. Belongings were on the ground, car mats were airing out on balcony railings. Around 8, I went outside to do the same. I wasn’t sure what I was going to see when I went down to my car, but I don’t think I was prepared for what I saw.

The floorboards were soaked with floodwater and the back seat and under the driver/passenger seats was a puddle a few inches thick of standing water. The trunk was also soaked and my little trunk organizer was wet (but not filled with water, so there’s a positive). Once I assessed everything and removed any items that needed to dry out (like my floormats), I tried to start my car. I was hoping it was just going to be wet and maybe a little musty, but still drivable. Unfortunately, the car did not start. She turned over once and then stalled out, and then didn’t start again. Oh, no. I hoped it just needed more time to dry out.

In the meantime, I had to take care of the wet car. I went upstairs and picked up a stack of towels (these are my backup towels that I kept telling myself I needed to donate, but I am sure glad I didn’t!) I was able to soak up the standing water with the towels, but there was still the matter of the wet floorboards that really needed to be dried with a wet/dry vac so all that dampness didn’t become moldy. Thankfully, my stepdad came to the rescue! He had a wet/dry vac and was able to bring it over on Friday morning so I could dry out the car.

(My mom’s house fared just fine through the night. They had some flooding in the street and on their driveway, but it didn’t get into the house or garage. They had a lot of debris on their driveway to pick up, and my mom got, like, a dozen ant bites on her poor feet from all of that labor. They also never lost power, but were without Internet for most of Friday.)

When Robert was drying out the car, he decided to remove my trunk liner to see if any water had gotten into the spare tire well. And, you guys, thank goodness he thought of that! LOOK AT THIS:

That’s at least a few gallons of water in this well. Oy vey! I didn’t even think to look there, but with that much water in my trunk, we assumed parts of my engine were flooded with as much water, too. It’s not looking good for you, Gladys!

Anyway, we got the car dried out and then decided to let the engine dry off for a few more hours before I called a tow truck/filed an insurance claim (another silver lining: my car insurance covers flood damage!). So my mom, Robert, and I went out to lunch and then back to their house where I took a nap for a few hours. Much needed after not sleeping much the night before! Then it was back to my apartment to check on the car.

Still not working.

I filed an insurance claim and then called a tow truck to take away my sweet little lady. When the tow truck driver arrived, one of the first things he said to me was, “You know they’re gonna total this, right?” I knew things weren’t looking great for Gladys, but it made me surprisingly emotional to think about that! I didn’t want Gladys to be totaled, I don’t want to go through the rigamarole of insurance totaling my car, I don’t want to buy a new car. I just wanted to turn back time, parked Gladys in a parking garage (which I could have done for free at my mom’s work; it makes me so angry at myself that I didn’t think of that!), and not have to worry about all of this nonsense.

Today, the Kia dealership where Gladys is at for the time being called me to say that they received the car but are pretty sure that insurance will have it totaled since it likely got flooded with saltwater and floodwater filled with chemicals and bacteria. Apparently, all of that isn’t great for car engines! Who knew?! They have had a huge influx of cars from this storm (hundreds!) and it’s going to take them a while to get through all of them. The likelihood is that I find out sometime late next week or early the following week what the status is and my next steps. For the time being, I am without a car, which isn’t fun. I’m trying my best to avoid getting a rental car because insurance won’t cover that 100% and I don’t need to be spending more money at this point in time.

What’s more, I’m staying with my mom until my power comes back. I hate being away from my cats and I worry about them being in a warm apartment (I mean, warm by my standards. Some people consider a 78-degree home to be the perfect temperature!). But at least I love being with my mom, so staying with her isn’t a huge inconvenience! She has a spare room that I can use and I get copious amounts of doggie love. I’m hoping to be back home and in my normal routine by Monday, but we’ll see.

I also consider myself very fortunate that my biggest concern is my car. I have the resources to deal with this, and it will hopefully not be a huge financial burden. It’s just going to be a bit stress-inducing for the time being. My home is fine. My cats are fine. My family and friends are fine. There are people in my city who lost everything. Some people were stuck on the roofs of their houses because the water in their homes rose to such a catastrophic level. Two of my friends are dealing with extreme storm damage at their homes, with damaged floors and furniture and appliances. And right now, I have friends offering to drive me places and pick up things for me. I have my mom and stepdad who dropped everything to help me. I am so lucky in so many ways.

I may be a bit sporadic in the blogging world for the next few weeks while I figure things out. I’ll try to pop in here when I can!