Days after Hurricane Helene caused widespread destruction across multiple U.S. states, former Ottawa television host Cyndi Edwards was finally able to survey the damage at one of her Florida rental units.
“Our place was disgusting to tell you the truth, it’s just amazing the power of water,” Edwards said. “Everything was upside down and just covered in mud.”
The ground floor unit in Bradenton Beach off Sarasota was destroyed.
“You can still see the watermark on the walls. Our couch was waterlogged, the bed’s waterlogged, fridge is upside down,” Edwards said.
“Everything had just been pushed around and there’s this layer of mud on the floor, which makes it very slippery. It’s surreal. You walk in and you go ‘Wow, this is water is super powerful’ and I have so much respect for it, but everything is replaceable.”
They’ll have to replace the floors, drywall, furniture and appliances and can’t dry the unit out with a fan yet because there’s still no power.
“We feel very fortunate that we are okay. There are a lot of people that are much worse off than we are. There are people that are missing. There are people that are dead,” Edwards said.
With more than 189 people killed across multiple states, Helene is the deadliest storm in the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Many residents are still dealing with power outages and roads that are impassable.
For Edwards, the clean-up is just starting.
“We were a little overwhelmed when we first got there. We should have gotten everything out and the appliances. Then you just take a hose basically and hose down the place, then you take your squeegee and then you squeegee out the mud.”
Edwards didn’t have flood insurance but says the master policy for the building will help.
“So we’re just trying to navigate this right now, making calls, getting quotes and plus we’re in competition with a lot of other people who are going through the same thing,” she said. “So as far as a timeline goes for getting this done, I don’t know how that’s going to work out, but we’ll get there. We just don’t know exactly when.”