Hurricane Damage, North Fort Myers, FL

Hello, my name is Kerrie and I am helping my brother and his family raise funds to help them build there lives back after loosing everything in the Sept, 2022 hurricane.

They have been through hurricanes before, this one was different.

He said there were strong winds and 3 inches in a flash to start… he noticed that the water was increasing faster and faster (not like others he had witnessed). They knew they had to get to their neighbors two story house as soon as they could.

They tried grabbing their cats and putting them in their carrying crates, but they kept running under the bed, as they were scared too. He would get one in the crate and then try putting the second one in and the first one would jump back out and underneath the bed it would go all over again. This went on and on…

They also had his wife’s 92 year old mother there who needs a lot of assistance with walking and other things. They finally get the cats inside their crate, they help her mom to the front door, and as they open the door, her mother falls backwards because 3 feet of water rushed inside the house and swept her off of her feet.

The water outside is increasing even more rapidly as they try to carefully keep everyone above water and get to the neighbors house. Fortunately, a neighbor who is driving around in their tall jeep sees them and takes them to the house that they’re trying to get to. (Thank you, neighbor friend!)

The neighbor drops them off to safety and continues to drive around to help others and eventually gets stuck himself. The water was too high and moving too fast, Jeff couldn’t go and help him… leaving Jeff feeling helpless and frustrated I’m sure. This neighbor is alright, not sure about his rescue jeep.

They stay the night there with just the clothes that they have on. The next morning they go back to their house and are unable to open the front door all the way. The furniture had moved/floated up against the front door. What he could see was their refrigerator on its back in the living room and everything else was looking like a big soup bowl with everything floating around.

Anything that was 5’ and under was destroyed… they will need to start from scratch to rebuild their lives all over again.

There were items that were sentimental from my mom’s passing that meant so much to him… gone.

We are extremely happy that their lives are still here, it’s just hard to know that they are unable to go back home to be in their own environment, sleep in their own bed, change their clothes, eat their own food, bathe in their own bathroom.

They are not the only ones who are in this situation of course and it’s very sad. I can’t help all of them, but I can help my brother, as he would do for me.

They will need to buy shoes and a change of clothes as they left with flip flops on and all shoes that were on the ground are ruined of course. They will need toiletries/personal care items and more…

Whatever you can give is helpful…

I appreciate it more than you know and I know they do too.