- Title: PERSONAL: 'It's a mess' -Florida residents return to flooded homes
- Date: 31st August 2023
- Summary: CRYSTAL RIVER, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (AUGUST 31, 2023)(REUTERS)(PART MUTE) VEHICLES IN FLOODED WATERS PAN OF FLORIDA RESIDENT DAVID LEMON'S FLOODED HOME VARIOUS OF DAVID LEMON, 57, WALKING IN FLOODED WATERS AND ENTERING FLOODED HOUSE (SOUNDBITE)(English) FLORIDA RESIDENT DAVID LEMON, 57, SAYING: "I had to take the clothes and take them somewhere else and put them, clothes I had hanging up there, I had to put them somewhere, so, you know. Yeah, I got to go out and look, see the bed, the water was just that high. Air conditioning gone and everything (INAUDIBLE). I don't know where to started, I really don't. But I got to start so I just need a couple of days to think about this stuff." PAN OF FLOODED HOMES CONSTRUCTION VEHICLE PICKING UP DEBRIS FROM FLOODED STREET (SOUNDBITE)(English) FLORIDA RESIDENT DAVID LEMON, 57, SAYING: "It's a mess. One thing I do got, 'I have a dream' [HOLDS UP PICTURE OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. AND STARTS LAUGHING] I keep that with me though, that's all we got, hope it's something else. Thank God, I'm still here though." (SOUNDBITE)(English) FLORIDA RESIDENT DAVID LEMON, 57, SAYING: "You know I got people here. I know people and people know me. White and Black, it don't matter. Mexicans don't even speak English, it's good people. It's a lot of good people right here, I've been here all along, I'm adapted. I'm not going nowhere, but everybody, this ain't nothing, compared to everyone else, this ain't nothing." SIGN READING "ROAD SUBJECT TO FLOODING" VARIOUS DRONE SHOTS OF HOMES AND STREETS (MUTE) EDWARD DECRESIE, 58, LOOKING AT HIS HOME THAT FLOODED SANDBAGS SANDBAGS AND A LADDER (SOUNDBITE)(English) FLORIDA RESIDENT EDWARD DECRESIE, 58, SAYING: "And what we came home to is a lot of the saltwater marsh and seaweed basically deposited throughout the neighborhood. We had about four feet of water inside the house. Last weekend we did everything we could to try to hold back a surge and normally we can handle three or four feet of surge, but this looks like it was about eight or nine feet. So we've pretty consistently had four feet of water throughout the entire house. My neighbor had the same and it's just through everything." EDWARD DECRESIE WALKING INTO HIS FLOODED HOME SAYING 'So we've been cleaning a little bit, but' AND THEN SAYS 'pretty consistently every room in the house is this way" (SOUNDBITE)(English) FLORIDA RESIDENT EDWARD DECRESIE, 58, SAYING: "I'm a native Floridian, and I guess we like to think of this as our little piece of paradise, you know, and 365 days a year, eight out of nine years it is. And every once in a while, you're in the direct path of something really bad. And then what you see out here, all the neighbors looking after each other. I probably had eight or ten neighbors call me throughout the storm to make sure I was out and the family was safe. And how is your you know, is the boat gone? Is the car gone? Do you need anything? And I'm getting the same today. Everybody at work is texting and how's the place and what can we do to help? So no again, it's just you grow up in Florida and you want to be near the water. It's just what we do and it feels right. So it I think it's worth, you know, the one or two times in our lifetime when we have to go through something like this, it makes you appreciate, it makes you appreciate it even more."' (SOUNDBITE)(English) FLORIDA RESIDENT EDWARD DECRESIE, 58, SAYING AS HE WALKS THROUGH THE HOUSE: "You know where the the bed couldn't get through the small opening, but it was floating in this direction and everything that was on the ground, got picked up and lifted out. You can see what it does to a cabinet after it's been in the water for that long." CONSTRUCTION VEHICLE DRIVING ON FLOODED ROAD (SOUNDBITE)(English) FLORIDA RESIDENT EDWARD DECRESIE, 58, SAYING AS HE WALKS THROUGH THE HOUSE: "I would definitely go higher if I if I can afford to. But it costs a lot of money to demo a house and lift it. It's not really easy to lift this up five or six feet. If it's a total loss, then I would take it down and build a house here again and I would do it on piling or on stilts." RAIN VARIOUS DRONE SHOTS OF FLOODED HOMES AND STREETS (MUTE)
- Embargoed: 14th September 2023 19:41
- Keywords: Crystal River Florida hurricane Florida hurricane damage Hurricane Idalia destroyed homes flooded homes storm surge water damage
- Location: CRYSTAL RIVER, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
- City: CRYSTAL RIVER, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
- Country: US
- Topics: Disaster/Accidents,North America,Wind/Hurricane/Typhoons/Tornadoes
- Reuters ID: LVA001846231082023RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Residents of Crystal River, Florida, on Thursday (August 31) returned to their homes flooded after Hurricane Idalia hit the area the day before.
The surge of storm-driven seawater that accompanied Idalia rushed inland for miles, flooding low-lying communities and roadways in its path.
No deaths had been reported from the storm surge, considered the greatest hazard posed by major hurricanes.
While Idalia proved less formidable than was feared, the heart of the state's rural Big Bend region - where its northern Gulf Coast panhandle curves into the Florida Peninsula - bore the brunt of the storm.
Tropical Storm Idalia on Thursday (August 31) inundated the Carolinas with torrential rains that threatened to trigger dangerous flash flooding, while Florida's Gulf Coast began recovery efforts after the system tore through the region as a Category 3 hurricane.
(Maria Alejandra Cardona, Kevin Fogarty, Colette Luke) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None