Helene headed to Florida's Gulf Coast

True. When Florence hit us in 2018 the issue was that it literally stopped. Moving less than 2 mph for almost 16 hours. That allowed to to drop 36 inches and led to some 1000 year catastrophic flooding. But almost none from surge.

These storms all literally have a life of their own.

Helene did a bit like Elena did to the gulf when I was in middle school...(minus the loop that uturn that Elena. I lived near Charlotte Harbor though and it sucked water out. But Tampa Bay got water pushed in similar to this iirc

 

Just overflow from what I am reading.

But we have a lot of posters on that side of this state and i hope they are all safe.

The NCDOT has declared "All roads" in the western part of the state as "closed". That is a crazy statement when you think about it.

And as someone who spends a decent amount of time over there I can tell you almost every main road was built along moving water it seems like. Likely because the path up and down the mountains was already In place by nature. The images I'm seeing are pretty terrible.

 

My niece, her husband and mother in law own Roy's Restaurant in Steinhatchee. The water completely destroyed it. All that is left is the foundation and the roof is next door. Looks like the storm surge was between 15 and 20 feet.

 

Hopefully that generator was set up and ready. Be safe, cleanup kills more than storms do

 

Next building should take that. The insurance might go up but think about how nice the new Roy's is going to be.

Do you know your finish floor elevation? Should show on survey provided at closing.. FFE

 

From what I can gather, Gandy Bridge area flooded. So did several low lying areas W of West shore Blvd. The WS Blvd itself flooded in several areas. BayShore Blvd flooded heavily down by Davis Island and cut off the island and Tampa General. TGH erected their 15 ft water barrier and it held back over 6 ft of water. The Hillsborough River surged and flooded the riverwalk, not sure if it got to any of the hotels. I haven't heard anything about Harbor Island. Shell point and Dana Shores are still under evacuation orders. Everything else has been lifted.
Closer to me, an area of Manhattan Blvd between Bay to Bay and El Prado flooded and got several businesses and homes. That is the area I traveled this morning and there were several cars just sitting empty in the road apparently flooded out trying to cross high water.
There are still spot outages and spot flooding from surface rain throughout the area.
Plenty I'm sure I haven't heard about.

Our area got lucky compared to further North.

 

Up here I’m the northern Appalachian end, there are flood watches and warnings, and we only got 1-3 inches. Parts of western NC are well over a foot and counting. That kind of rain in the mountains is apocalyptic, it’s got nowhere to go but down the mountain into the valley, which is basically a giant ditch to hold it in. Then there are landslide, rockslide and mudslide concerns, flash floods if small hold backs upstream give way etc.

I may go up to Shenandoah national park tomorrow morning, will be interesting to see how things are (assuming it’s open).

 

I believe our elevation certificate said 8 ft. We have a room that is a step down. Not sure what happens to that. Unfortunately, the water got into every room of the house.

Anyway, if anyone has any experience / expertise in this area, we would appreciate it. Our insurance company hasn’t returned our inquiries, and we are a bit shell shocked. Should we be cutting dry wall out right now or what, I don’t know.

 

All I can add is take as many pictures as possible before you do any cutting. Mold and mildew will set in fast(24-48 hrs) so you might want to begin the process of removing drywall and rugs even before speaking with the insurance company. Document everything.

https://www.fema.gov/pdf/rebuild/recover/fema_mold_brochure_english.pdf

 

Oh man, that looks bad. I remember Bayfront Blvd flooding with even the slightest surge. Can't imagine how bad it is this go round.

Edit: I see that you covered this in post 347 - thanks

 

Document
Document
Document.

Prayers for you guys.

 

Sorry dude that sucks.

 

Was able to cut a path out of the driveway and drive across town to inspect my house. One messed up shutter. That's it. Neighbor had a tree fall sideways onto their other neighbors car. A few houses down had another tree fall through a car.

Valdosta in general is another story. Saw dozens of houses with trees through the roofs on our short trip. Dozens of trees that have snapped power poles and have fallen on power lines. It's pretty bad, but everyone I know is safe.