Help Eve recover from Ida and stay afloat.

Hi. I my name is Eve. I am 66 years old and live in the New Orleans metro (Kenner) and have my business, Eve Tait Creations as an artist here.

When Covid hit New Orleans almost 2 years ago it hit the artists, musicians and hospitality workers especially hard. I had to go on mortgage forbearance to survive.

This summer finally things were looking up. I was able to afford to come off the forbearance and get back on track looking forward to a great fall and Christmas season. Until last Sunday, August 29th, the 16th anniversary of the day hurricane Katrina hit. This time it was Ida. The eastern eyewall of Ida spent 4 hours rotating over Kenner and me in my tiny home with sustained winds of 70 mph with wind gusts has high as 135mph. IDA ravaged the whole of this area for a full 12 hours. It was the most sustained terrifying day of my life.

I am so grateful I was unharmed and my house is relatively unscathed. The garage, however, did not faire well. It is a 30 x 30 x 12ft industrial garage that came with the house and was exactly what I need as an artist for my equipment and supplies and inventory. Most of the roof is spread around the neighborhood and the metal fencing, Ida snapped the 2 x 4s and bent the metal polls holding everything in place. The contents of the garage are soaked. Water seeks it's lowest level so every horizontal surface is filled with water. Anything wood or paper is soaked. Fabric bolts are soaked. My CNC router is soaked. It rained last night. It will continue to rain in the garage until the roof is rebuilt. There

Is too much missing to lay tarp.

I am overwhelmed. There is no power (so it is hot and humid in the house) and not likely to be for, they are saying 3 to 6 weeks at the hottest time of the year. The stores I am in will be generating 0 income for a while and still requesting rent becuase they were hit hard by the COVID shutdown.

We were just starting to come around that bend.

Please help me to stay afloat, to repair, to pay bills, to possibly stay somewhere else if this takes too long to restore power. Any help will be so much appreciated and I would be more than happy to gift you some of my artwork in exchange for Christmas.

Thank you for reading.