Nicki's Story

I've lived in Central Florida since 2000. I was 25 when I moved to Orlando. I had never been to Florida before. I just knew I wanted to live there from watching it on TV.

I'm from Lancaster City, PA. I hated the cold and snow. The company I worked for had hair salons all over the world, so one day I asked my Regional Manager to find me a busy salon in Florida with an opening. I settled in Orlando because my godparents, Harry and Nilsa lived there, and my Sisters Bernice, Diana and Katie lived in Tampa. I've always wanted to buy a house. I've watched almost every show on HGTV and always dreamed of flipping a house!

In 2019, I was living in Zephyrhills, working my dream job at Disney. I started to seriously think about the steps I needed to take to buy a house. I worked on my credit score and brought it up from poor to 700's, and contacted a mortgage broker. I wanted all one floor, stairs are a challenge for my senior fur baby Mercedes and myself, and I wanted a yard so my fur babies and future pets could have an outdoor space. It had to allow tortoises, and have a lanai.

I was now ready to look for houses, and my coworkers had given me a realtor in Tampa to work with. I started working with her looking at different locations from the New Port Richey to Ruskin area around my office in Temple Terrace near I-75. The first house was very small, with no yard and gone quicker than you could blink.

The pandemic brought one of the craziest times of our lives. The world had shut down and I was now an essential worker, working from home. My housing search was still on but had changed because of closures and lockdowns.

My on and off again boyfriend told me about his friend's Mom who was a realtor in Lakeland. I contacted her and she showed me a few properties. Then I saw the house on Honeytree Lane East on Little Lake Bonny. When I drove up to the cul-de-sac, the house had this beautiful warm, inviting aura surrounding it!

The house was recently renovated by flippers and was beautiful. It was everything I wanted with a lanai and a big beautiful yard for the fur kids. Best of all, it was on a lake and came with an island! Because it was on a lake, out of curiosity I asked my realtor if it had ever flooded. She didn't know. So I introduced myself to my future neighbors sitting on their dock and asked if the lake ever flooded (at that time I didn't even know the lake's name, (I was so naive). My future neighbors informed me that they've lived there for 10 years (2010-2020) and the City of Lakeland always pumped the lake out if it got too high.

We then did a survey of the property which showed it was in flood zone X, meaning, no flood zone for the house. But the island was in Zone AE (worst flooding outside of the coast). With that I purchased my house, and we moved in on June 19, 2020 just in time for our first hurricane season on Little Lake Bonny.

My dogs Cocoa (Chihuahua), Mercedes (Boxer) and Diesel (Cane Corso Mastiff) loved the yard, sunning themselves and enjoying Their Home 🐾

Hurricane Encounters

I've always lived on the water or very near. I've lived on the east coast most of my life. My family has a shore house in Lewes, DE and one in Florida since 2000. I have been through many hurricanes and more than my share of Category 5's in Florida.

Hurricane Ian in September 2022 was definitely worrisome. It was my first encounter with high lake levels. I knew nothing about lake management, or even where the water went if they drained the lake, as my neighbors had mentioned, or even who to contact outside of the city should the lake levels get uncomfortably high. We had wind damage to our lanai screens, but the water didn't breach my property's shoreline.

Fast forward two years later to the end of July 2024. Hurricane Debby was heading towards Florida and the water looked high. But we had never had challenges in the past three hurricane seasons. August 5, 2024 was the first time the water came over my yard. The neighbors had been contacting the City of Lakeland about the water levels since before that date, because their yards were already under water. After that day, anyone who contacted the City of Lakeland about the water levels being too high were met with, "we've turned the pump on."

Unfortunately the water never receded and only got closer to our house every time it rained.

Hurricane Helene made landfall in Late September and half of my yard was under water. My dogs' fenced in yard was now at the waterline. My dogs no longer went near the fence to go potty.

A few days later we found out Hurricane Milton was headed our way! We had to get the house prepared while working full time because jobs in Florida do not close early to allow you to go prepare. You have your days off, after or before work, but nothing outside of that until the storm is already too close. We have more warning than other natural disasters, but evacuating is not something most people can do the further south you are in Florida.

Preparing for the storm

Note to authorities, getting sandbags in Polk County is a hot mess express! Suggestions: open the locations earlier instead of 2-3 days before the storm is going to hit. Y'all need to do better!

My roommate, Courtney, went to get sandbags everyday. She waited 5-10 hours for 11 sandbags that she had to fill herself in most locations. You also have to show you live in that county to get your 11 bags! After 4 days we had around 50 sandbags and empty sandbags to fill up if we found sand.

From the time I woke up until bedtime, we used breaks and lunches, getting the inside of the house prepared if some water got inside. I made sure everything was lifted off of the floors, up to 2-3 feet, packed bags with clothes, meds, and our fur kids' things. I pulled important documents out of the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and put them in my suitcase.

Hurricane Milton... and the flood

10/9/24- The day began as soon as the sun came up making sure everything last minute was done before we sandbagged the doors shut. My Leader knew that if I had to leave, it would be immediately and wouldn't have time to go through the normal process. I was on chat first thing so it was not bad. I had the weather channel on mute to keep an eye on the storm. My office window faces the lake so it's hard to see what is happening, but I would be able to see if the water breached the dog yard past the fence.

A few hours into my shift the weather started getting worse. The dog yard was already under water in the lower parts of my property. My friend, Jen, who spent hurricane Helene inside Tampa General Hospital (and their Aquafence) while having my niece Liana 🫶, sent me sandbagging videos from Hillsborough County news. It was the best way to learn the proper way to use them. I went on break and started spraying the slider with Flex Seal on the outside seam of the door all the way around 4-5 feet up. I had watched videos of a motorcycle shop on Daytona Beach showing how they prepped this way. Then I followed the video from the Public Works. We laid our shower curtain along the slider, taped it to hold it in place, then laid the sandbags in a bricklayer pattern. Finally, we wrapped the remaining shower curtain over the sandbags and tucked it in slightly.

Then I moved to the front of the house and I sandbagged the front door. We did not sandbag the garage because we were going to need to take the dogs outside to potty. Looking back, they never went potty because they didn't like the rain, wind or noise.

3:15 pm I looked out the front window and water was rushing down the street and from the right of Honeytree Pond. It came across Honeytree Lane East, and we now had a few inches of water on our front porch and our yard had about 2 inches. We were still in for a long night. Hurricane Milton had not made landfall yet.

I cooked dinner and a few other things in case we lost power. We bagged ice and stored it in the freezer for after the storm. My husband, Ricky, and I lived in Deltona, Volusia County, FL and went through Hurricane Matthew, a Cat 5 storm, on October 6-7, 2016. We were without power for 5 days, so we were no strangers to riding out the storm.

8:30 pm:

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Siesta Keys (2 hours west of my house). By then, we had around a foot or so of water around the back and side of the house and we sandbagged the garage door into the house as water was starting to come under door. We watched TV as Hurricane Milton came on land and split in half. The rain was much more intense, and sandbags were floating in my yard and the ones around my AC Unit were almost under water.

10:30 - 11:30 PM

The toilets started to fill up with sewage in our main bathroom, then the master and finally out of the tub and shower. I started putting the last items into our suitcases in case we had to evacuate.

Hurricane Milton was now over Lakeland... the news showed all of the tornado warnings and touchdowns in our area. The rain and wind were so intense at this point, the wind was growling.

10/10/24 12:15 AM:

I came out of our master bedroom facing the kitchen and saw water coming in the house from the kitchen/ pantry area, not from the door. I started yelling at my husband Ricky that water was coming in and to get up to help me! I grabbed the shop vac and tried to suck the water up but it was coming in too fast! I screamed at Ricky to help me think of other ways to get the water out and he told me there was no way to keep up with it, and that we needed to get out!

I opened the window and the water was right below the window ledge. Courtney jumped out into the water and I passed the bags out to her to take to the car. Once the car was full, Courtney and I got into the car and drove to Grove Shopping Center where my Kia Soul was parked, because it was too low to the ground to stay at the house. This was the smartest preparation we made, and almost everything else was not the smartest or safest. We had just gone through Hurricane Helene, and people in North Carolina and Tennessee lost their lives because of flash flooding or were trapped on their roofs. We tried to open the doors of the car and it was so hard with the force of the wind. I've never experienced wind of this magnitude. I really felt it while transferring the bags from Courtneys car to my car. It was also difficult walking in the wind, like I was in the movie Twister!! Freezing and past soaked, we headed back to my house to get everyone into Courtney's car to evacuate. When we got back onto Honeytree Lane East the water was twice as deep as it was before we left. We could no longer park near the driveway because the water was too deep to drive through at the beginning of the cul-da-sac. We parked the car and walked through the water to the house in the dark. The water was above my knees as we got back to the front window and climbed back into the house. The wood floor planks were all popping up off the floor. You could feel the floor under your feet moving. It was wild. Ricky grabbed me when I got into the house and told me not to freak out because he did when he saw it. I took a deep breath and exhaled as he guided me to the window of our bedroom, I was not prepared to see a boat outside of my master bedroom!!! My heart sank and all I could think about was the movie The Day After Tomorrow. Again Courtney went out the window. Nala, our 3 year old Black Mountain Cur was standing on our bed screaming. Taino, our 9 year old Boxer was standing on the floor in the water with a puzzled look. I helped Ricky out of the window to Courtney and she guided him to the car. I came back and harnessed and leashed both dogs, and put on my backpack. I passed Taino out first because he was older. Nala's scream was gut wrenching. I didn't know what she was thinking but I knew I had to stay strong. I passed her leash out to Courtney and Nana jumped out the window without help!! I closed the window. As Courtney headed to the car, Nala refused to walk until I was in her sight. The water was now up to my hips as we walked in the dark knowing that alligators and snakes could be next to us. Taino didn't have to swim the entire time because he was taller than Nala, so she swam most of the way to the car. Taino collapsed from exhaustion in Courtney's arms when they got to the car. We all got into the car and drove back to my car.

10/10/24 2:00 AM:

Now freezing and drenched, we sat in the car with the heat on. I told everyone that we needed a plan before we started driving because it was too dangerous to just drive around without a plan. We also needed a few minutes to calm down to continue on after what we had gone through.

10/10/24 2:30 AM:

Our plan was to go to Ricky's Mom's house in Deltona, an hour and a half east of Lakeland. Courtney drove first and I followed down Bartow Road to the expressway entrance. As Courtney headed on to the expressway ramp, I watched the water from the retention pond push a tree over and fall in front of Courtney's car . Luckily, it missed them! We reversed back down the ramp and did a U-Turn to go down Combee Rd to get on I-4. I was now the lead car. We pulled over at 7-11 for Courtney to calm down after the tree incident, so we could continue our drive. After a few minutes we got on I-4 following Hurricane Milton to the east coast. The wind was so strong you couldn't drive faster than 30-35 MPH. The speed limit is normally 75 mph. We were not the only people on the road, so that made me breathe a little easier as I drove with my husband to his childhood home. His brother was there, however, his Mom was on a cruise.

10/10/24 4:45AM:

We arrived in Deltona in one piece. We took all three dogs inside the house to the lanai. They drank water and went potty after a really long night. We sat up with Ariel, my brother-in-law, for a little while to calm down and tell him what we had just gone through. Taino was fast asleep on his makeshift pallet on the floor in the living room. We said goodnight and went to sleep.

10/10/24 2:00 pm

We woke up exhausted in every way possible. There was no way I was going to be able to drive back to the house to see what the damage was. It would be 6 or 7 pm before we could get there. Ricky needed dialysis. We decided to wake up early the next day and head back to Lakeland.

10/11/24 9:00 AM

The drive back to Lakeland took over 4 hours with all the traffic past the storm. Once we got off I-4 the lines for gas and the price gauging were the worst I've ever seen. As we got closer to the house there was a lot of damage; trees were down, signs were broken and debris was everywhere. Once we turned onto Honeytree Lane East we did not expect to see the cars all parked up by Cinnamon Street because that was where the water stopped.

We left Nala and Gracie in the car (it was running) and we made the walk through the water with a few waterproof bags. When we got to the cul da sac we immediately saw the boat as it was floating in between my house and my neighbor, Connie's, house. It was bouncing off our roofs and houses. We couldn't get into the house through the front door. It wouldn't open because something was blocking it. Instead, we went in through the garage. There was about 2 feet of water in the garage, and there were huge fish swimming around! Opening the door to the house, we turned the corner to see almost all of the laminate flooring floating on the water. My first home.

We packed more necessities as we knew we were going to be away from the house a lot longer. Just how much longer was truly more than anyone who lived on Lake Bonny ever imagined.

10/14/24

I had my first panic attack as I was about to return to work, and was leaving my family for the first time since the storm.

10/16/24 I woke up to everyone scrambling as Taino collapsed in the yard and padded away. It was the saddest thing to see him so tired after the escape, but he was eating, drinking and walking around. I met Taino in 2015. He was almost 1 and born in January. Taino was one of the sweetest dogs and will be forever missed.

Side note: Taino are indigenous natives that inhabited Puerto Rico and some of the other Caribbean islands.

10/23/24

The USACE arrived with their pumps!

My homeowners insurance sent me a letter saying that they're no longer insuring me and have given my policy to SLIDE insurance.

10/25/24

I made the decision to stop working due to the stress, panic attacks, anxiety and exhaustion.

10/31/24

The water is officially out of our houses! As exciting as this was we now got to see the damage caused by sitting under two feet of water and sewage for twenty-one days. The sight and smell was horrific. Thousands of bugs, raw sewage and mold was everywhere. Every turn was more devastating than the last, with the mold all over the furniture, halfway up the walls, and over our family photos.

Having the feeling of the unknown, we were essentially homeless with the house in this condition. I didn't know what to do, where to start. I needed an adult more than ever in my life!

The upside

Meeting my neighbors was ultimately one of the best things that came of this storm. We became a family and have come a long way together! We've gone to meetings, fought, cried, spoke up and did research together to make a difference, to be sure this would never happen again. We found out that the negligence fell on the City of Lakeland'. Outdated infrastructure and the fact that the Mayor and City Commissioners were more interested in spending money on the lipstick on the pig, instead of improving the infrastructure.

The work isn't done.