ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Though largely and thankfully unscathed after Tuesday’s no-name storm, people in the flood-weary Shore Acres neighborhood of St. Petersburg are working to protect their homes in preparation for the next flooding event.
At many homes, construction and renovation are still going on months after flooding from Hurricane Idalia back in August, which caused damage to more than 1,000 homes in the area.
A peak inside Russ Thiel’s home shows the long, ongoing steps to full recovery. Video he took back then shows roughly a foot of water that rushed inside.
“When you move here to Shore Acres, you got to plan on that right? You got to expect it,” Thiel said.
He and his wife moved to the neighborhood a little more than two years ago, and now as they rebuild, they are working to better protect for the future, in a relatively affordable way.
This week, Thiel began the process of removing stone and wrapping the entire bottom exterior of his home with “liquid rubber,” a waterproof sealant.
“It's used to prevent any kind of water infiltration right so we're going to wrap the entire house down to the pad,” Thiel explained, saying he got the idea after talking with contractors and seeing success stories online.
On the inside of his home where drywall was torn down and needs replacement, he’s instead putting “EnduraFlood” panels, noting it’s only slightly more expensive than traditional drywall.
“So if water does get inside, you don't have to deal with flooded drywall and that kind of mess. You can just pull them off, dry them off and put them back on,” he added.
For him, it just makes more logistical and financial sense than working through the process to lift his homes, which neighbors in the community have been considering after a rough stretch of flooding events.
While there are federal grants available to help homeowners make the major structural change, it requires a lot of money upfront and in some cases is not possible.
“We couldn't lift it physically, that was an impossibility. So, we would have had to scrape it and put a new home and that just was not in the budget,” Thiel said.
Thiel hopes to have all the work done by April, while his insurance payout is helping pay for the new paneling inside, the exterior wrap will cost him less than $5,000 in total, an investment he hopes will pay dividends.
Meanwhile, the city of St. Petersburg announced $600,000 in new funding available to assist homeowners impacted by Hurricane Idalia.
The money will be awarded in the form of forgivable zero-interest loans and can be used for construction, insurance deductibles, emergency supplies, mortgage, rental assistance and more.
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