4-minute read
At about 2 a.m. on Oct. 10, as Hurricane Milton was battering Lakeland, Nicole Ramirez looked out her living room window and up Honeytree Lane East to see water coming down the street toward her home, which sits on the south shore of Little Lake Bonny.
It began pooling in the front yard.
Harrowing evacuation: She, her husband Ricardo Ramirez, and their housemate, Courtney Kraft, prepared to evacuate, with the two women sandbagging the front door and the garage door as the water moved closer to the house. Then they all packed small bags for the few nights they expected to be out of their home.
“We came out this window with the dogs and the stuff that was on our backs,” Nicle Ramirez said, adding that they thought the flooding would come from the lake side of the home, for which they had prepared. “The water was up to the (window sill).”
Ramirez, 49, had to help her husband out of the window. Ricardo Ramirez, 51, suffers from end stage renal failure and has issues with his arteries.
Then Nicole and Kraft, 40, grabbed their three dogs – Nala, Gracie and Taina – with the animals swimming to the car as the rain blew at more than 85 miles per hour sideways. The trio and the animals sat in a car in the Grove Park Shopping Center parking lot, soaked and shivering. A few days later, their 9-year-old boxer, Taino, died from the stress.
Unlivable: Now the Ramirez home and their belongings sit in moldy, rotting ruins.
“Saturday will be a month that our house has been underwater, and (the water is) finally out,” Nicole said. “But the lack of anything being done in that time has caused so much damage to the house that it’s unlivable. We can’t safely live in here.”’
On Oct. 30, a FEMA official declared the house to be unlivable.
Mold speckles the drywall at least four feet up, while their laminate flooring throughout the house lies where it floated up from the concrete slab in floodwaters. Computers and TVs sweat from the moisture, ruining the electronics. They lost all the fish in the living room’s large fish tank, although Nicole noticed one survivor in the bedroom tank on Thursday.
Staying with family: The family has been commuting back and forth between a family member’s home in Deltona to Lakeland for Ricardo’s medical appointments and to try to retrieve what they can from the home. They have to put on rain boots and masks to enter what had once been their lakeside dream home.
They would like to return to Lakeland, but can’t.
“No shelter will take me and my dogs and her, with my condition,” he said. “I’ve tried. I’ve asked.”
Nicole said rental property owners want at least $6,000 for first and last month’s rent, plus a security deposit, money they don’t have right now.
Nicole and Kraft both work in IT for Walt Disney World, but Ricardo is on disability because of his medical condition.
Medical equipment: In the floodwaters, Ricardo lost all of his medical equipment, including an electric wheelchair, a nebulizer, an exercise bike, a custom electric wheelchair, an oxygen machine, a scooter, a manual wheelchair, two walkers, and an adjustable medical bed.
They had placed all his medication in a plastic bin, hoping to save it, but the bin’s interior has grown moldy.
Slideshow – 9 photos:
Ricardo and Nicole Ramirez in their flood damaged home on Little Lake Bonny. Floodwaters stayed inside the home for more than three weeks. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
Ricardo Ramirez puts on a mask to enter his flood-damaged home on Little Lake Bonny. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
Nicole Ramirez points to the window she, her husband Ricardo and their housemate Courtney Kraft had to climb out of as floodwaters rse during Hurricane Milton. Floodwater stayed in her Little Lake Bonny home for more than three weeks. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
Nicole Ramirez stands in her flood-damaged living room. Floodwater stayed in her Little Lake Bonny home for more than three weeks. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
Nicole and Ricardo Ramirez’s kitchen following flooding from Hurricane Milton. Floodwater stayed in their Little Lake Bonny home for more than three weeks. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
City Commissioner Guy LaLonde hugs Nicole Ramirez in the front yard of her flood-damaged home on Little Lake Bonny. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
Courtney Kraft’s office and bedroom in a home on Little Lake Bonny. Moisture from flooding and humidity have damaged or destroyed everything in the home on Honeytree Lane East. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
A crew of city staff worked along Honeytree Lane a day after city commissioners held a meeting about flooding along Lake Bonny and Little Lake Bonny. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow 
A pontoon boat broke loose from its moorings on Little Lake Bonny during Hurricane Milton and damaged several homes as it banged against them. | Kimberly C. Moore, LkldNow
Improved drainage: Nicole said the city needs a vast improvement to its drainage system.
“The pumping was just not adequate enough to help. They need to have more pumps,” she said. “They need to have a better plan, because this can’t happen again. Next time, we might not make it out.”
Clean-up and rebuilding: Now that the water has finally seeped out of their house, the long process of clean-up and rebuilding will begin. They will have to throw out everything in the house because of the mold, rip out all the drywall, possibly have to redo the home’s electrical system, and replace the entire air-conditioning system
“We were quoted almost $25,000 for cleanup, with a wall-cut above the TV at this point. So a six-and-a-half -foot water line is where that goes,” Nicole said.
Help from the city: She thinks the city should be helping more, including supplying bins for debris and waiving permitting fees when they begin to rebuild.
City Commissioner Guy LaLonde visited with the Ramirezes on Thursday afternoon, telling them he has found someone to help.
Then he hugged Nicole as she thanked him and began crying.
But Ricardo said even after rebuilding, he doesn’t know if he’ll return to Honeytree Lane East.
“Even after they try to fix it, I can’t live here and breathe this,” Ricardo said. “The mold is never going to go away. I’m always going to have health issues, breathing issues, from it.”
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