Support Rick and Donna's Recovery from Flood Damage

Hello!

My name is Rick Ehrbar and my wife is Donna Mercurio. We have 2 miniature schnauzers, Mia and Charlie. We've lived in our home for 18 years at 18316 Gulf Blvd.

That's a picture of our home with most of our belongings on the curb. The state has already picked up another half of it.

I manage condominiums here on the beach. Donna helps out with the condos and manages the home. After her aortic valve replacement a couple of years ago, she has retired but still does what she can.

On September 26th, everything in our lives changed. We weren't even going to seek higher ground as so many times we'd heard there'd be a storm surge and we were really confident this time wouldn't be much different. Just in case, we'd spent the week putting all our valuables up on tables, counters, and beds. Honestly, I didn't even think about taking the cars to higher ground, that's how confident I was that we were prepared.

The news kept saying 5-8 foot surge. We'd had 6 before and it was still outside our home by a good 8 inches. The storm was passing 150 miles away. There was simply no way we were in danger of losing anything, let alone almost everything.

How wrong we were!

The surge was 38 inches inside our house. Luckily, we had sought refuge at a kind neighbor's condominium unit well out of the flood range.

Unfortunately, we lost about 90% of our belongings and have sustained an incomprehensible amount of damage inside our home and to the building. I can't put a number on it. It's a lot. Way more than we have and I doubt insurance is going to come anywhere close to making us whole.

If you've never seen a flood-damaged home, I will do my best to describe it. Everything in the house begins to float. It floats around and begins to fall over, including refrigerators and autos. Some stuff doesn't float; it just gets waterlogged and some breaks apart. Everything is covered in muck. Muck is basically poopy sewage, and it is everywhere. By the time you come into your home, everything made of metal is covered in rust and poo. Upholstery and wood are waterlogged and ruined. All of your electronics from blenders to shavers are destroyed. The walls are waterlogged and have to be torn out to inhibit mold growth. It is too much to take in.

To add insult to injury, Milton came along and tore off a good portion of the north side of our tile roof 2 weeks later.

I have never asked for help from anyone before so this is very humbling and quite embarrassing. Right now we don't know how we will be able to afford to keep going on, but we have to, right?

Any donation would be very much appreciated in our effort to keep our lives and our dogs in Redington Shores.

Thank you for reading my story.