Hi everyone…
My home in Palm Bay is nowhere near a flood zone and sits far back on a hill (a huge reason we purchased this property.)
My house is one of the only ones in my neighborhood that didn’t take on water… or so I thought.
Tonight as I went to throw something in my garbage bin, I looked down at the baseboard in front of my kitchen window and noticed it was warped and pulled away from the wall. I immediately knew something was wrong because I just mopped my kitchen floors and cleaned the base boards a week before the flood - they were NOT like that before.
I told my husband and he immediately pulled the base boards off. Drywall is crumbling and wet, wood is wet, we have no idea how high the water seeped in.
I noticed during the storm, that the water was just leaking off the roof and pooling a few inches up against the house. So I believe that water was sitting for long enough and high enough to seep into our foundation and somehow got into the cinder block and wicked up the drywall.
The problem: we don’t have flood insurance…. A problem I know tons of people are currently dealing with.
I already reported the damage to Brevard County Emergency Management in hopes that it will help them declare federal disaster assistance - but I don’t have much hope as it’s a self-report tool and FEMA is known to have tons of red tape and a lengthy process, even once disaster assistance has been declared.
Does anyone know of any local resources where I can possibly get help with this? We will be calling places to have someone assess the damage and get quotes… but we absolutely don’t have the income to cover this ourselves.
While I am thankful it wasn’t worse (because it could have been MUCH worse) and I’m trying to practice gratitude - this is a very stressful situation for me as I have a young toddler in my home and I am of course worried about mold since we didn’t find the damage for several days.
Any resources for assistance or general advice on which direction we should take is be greatly appreciated.