Restore Meg's Channel: Overcome Hurricane Loss

Hi my name is Meg. You may know me and the pups from my channel Meg’s Crime Watch on YouTube (www.youtube.com/@megscrimewatch). I run court and legal case content and am known for my in-depth research.

What you may not know is that I live in Florida and have been subject to two hurricanes in two weeks time. Hurricanes Helene and Milton have done a number on my life and help is a long way off (if they ever come through).

Right now, vital equipment that allows me to run my business/channel was the victim of a power surge caused by Milton. There is no resurrecting it and without it I cannot earn any money. I pieced together a backup computer and tried to work with it, but it has taken me 2 days to do what I used to do in an hour.

Insurance won’t cover the loss (it is specifically excluded) and FEMA is denying my claim because I have homeowner's insurance. I am appealing, but it feels like I am stuck in an endless loop. I have applied for every loan possible, but they are all tied back to FEMA, who denied me, or I don't qualify because I can't prove that I can repay them.

That is why I reached the point of desperation to turn to the community for help. I am more used to being the helper than the helped but I do not have many options right now. I want to get back to creating content. Please realize that if I could work a full-time normal job, I would in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, my MS prevents that. This recent flare-up from the stress has had me in bed for the better part of the last 10 days.

In order to get my system back up and running, I am asking for assistance to replace the following that were damaged during a power surge as a result of Hurricane Milton (ironically, lightning hit my house a couple weeks before Helene and took out my modem and a couple other things. I just got all that replaced when this happened):

Motherboard (ASRock x570 Phantom Gaming WiFi ax) $149

CPU (AMD Ryzen 9 5900x 12-core) $262

CPU Cooler (Corsair H100) $205

Power Supply (Corsair 1000w 80 Plus Gold) $159

Memory (Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3200 128GB 4x32) $249

Storage (Seagate Expansion External 14TB HDD) $215

External HD Case (Terramaster D8 Hybrid) $299

Router (Ubiquiti AmpliFi) $254

Asus ProArt Wacom Monitor $794

Asus ProArt 32" 4K HDR Monitor $499

2nd PC Beelink Mini S12 N100 $169

=$3254

(Note: Power surge also hit thermal printer, sublimination printer, photo scanner, key lights for streaming, and several other random electronics that are not essential to operation and I am not going to replace immediately)

I am unsure if my GPU & HD's are damaged, but it is very likely :(

Graphics (Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 OC 10G) $1,129

16TB Seagate HDD $330

12TB Seagate HDD $229

4TB WD Black SSD $289

8TB Seagate HDD $180

2TB WD Black SSD $150

=$2307

If I am unable to recover the data, I am not sure what I will do! It is almost two years worth of court videos and so much more. Priceless IMO.

To ensure transparency, I will post receipts for any and all purchases. If I am able to salvage any components, I will update and adjust the amount. I am hoping to get back to work and get my numbers up, so I can earn extra revenue to be able to help my family as well.

Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for any help. I am still trying to wrap my head around everything that happened and how life just keeps going. Bills are still due, even though you didn't have internet access to work for a weeks. I guess that is the risk of self-employment. It is all so stressful and overwhelming.