Hurricane Nicole arrived in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane. After several hours, it slowed down to return to tropical storm status.
At 2:50 am on November 10th, we woke up to water entering our living room from the same location it had on November 3rd and on September 28th, during Hurricane Ian.
We were told that SouthernCAT (or someone they hired) had secured the roof in both previous occasions. I guess not!
Here’s a timeline of how our night should have gone:
Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Wake up. Coffee. Breakfast. Work.
Here’s how that actually went:
- 2:50am: We woke up to water entering our living room from where it had occurred a week prior. Using only towels to sop up the water and wring it out, we filled our ~40 gallon bathtub twice.
- 5:42am: The water started coming in even more substantial, so we called Security to let them know and hopefully get some help.
- 5:45am: It was reported that water from our unit breached those below and adjacent to us.
- 6:00am: A neighbor spotted my video from 4:30 am on the private Facebook group and came over with their shop vac. We also both called out of work at this point.
- 7:59am: We called Security again to see if someone could help.
- 10:21am: We finished soaking up the water in our unit. We estimated 150 gallons in total but suspect that number is much higher. We finally ate some breakfast and got some shut eye.
- 3:10pm: SouthernCAT arrived. Although there was no water left to soak up, they said they’d go on the roof and figure out what happened so it doesn’t happen again.
Apparently, the high winds of Tropical Storm Nicole moved the temporary roof covering back, allowing water to get in. They secured it with more weight to prevent it from moving again in the future.
(We also signed out one of their shop vacs to have on hand — just in case).
