Life in Tampa Bay After Hurricane Milton

[Music] oh [Music] [Music] what is up Tampa Bay hello to my live stream family I know it's been a few weeks and I wanted to jump in here give y'all a life update post hurricane Milton because it has been a crazy time for the Alcala household as well as uh my team and um wanted to jump in here and uh first and foremost just say thank you to everyone that's reached out to me personally uh the messages the Instagram messages the emails that I've received from you guys and our audience have just been absolutely incredible and I hope this live stream is coming through well because um unfort fortunately I have been displaced and I'll bring you guys up to speed on that um but I am in a loner studio right now which is a huge blessing shout out to our church by the way our church family is incredible um in a way that I I just can't articulate but I will do my best um to try to bring you guys up to speed on that but I'm sitting in this it's a gorgeous studio um internet is not the most stable thing so if we get a little bit choppy um no that's what's going on but I just wanted to to jump on here and I'm going keep tonight short next week we are going to get you guys uh back in the mix of all things Tampa Bay what's happening in and around town um I was able to get out last week and you know hopefully if you guys are following Channel you saw the video where you know we just gave a little you know update on the beaches in our community because it is a um it's an interesting time to be around here and uh you know I just want to say thanks again support has been phenomenal um but you guys really give me an an outlet to um to focus on and something else to worry about outside of what's happening in our household I'm GNA bring you guys up to speed on that right now as a matter of fact so um you know we being in in real estate you learn a lot over the years and um a lot of the times you learn some lessons that you weren't looking for and right now is one of those times um I've shared with you guys before we live about a mile and a half as a crow flies from Indian Rocks Beach which is our our home Beach my home is 43 feet above sea level approximately um which is great we weren't affected by the storm surge and as a matter of fact storm surge for Hurricane Milton was uh almost negative in certain areas I believe Indian Rocks or Clear Water recorded a negative2 foot storm surge which is great I mean that's awesome considering the week before um with hurricane Helen that was not the case right a lot of our communities were washed out I shared that with you guys um and irony is um a week later um we we evacuated uh hurricane Milton we went to the east coast and stayed near our in-laws which uh was an interesting experience because there was a lot of tornadoes over there which man it was it was interesting um but Thursday morning we woke up our neighbors had sent us some uh ring doorbell footage from Wednesday evening and there was water in our streets and our neighborhood um again if I'm 43 feet above sea level our neighborhood's pretty high right uh well the Retention Ponds uh across the street in in a different community over over flooded or over um overflowed with the 12 inches of rain that we received where I lived um in about six hours and um ran all through the neighborhood fortunately most people weren't affected if they were they were affected very little but however I have found out out that we are the lowest um house in our neighborhood and the community behind us is roughly 5 or six feet above us in elevation so needless to say our home flooded so we came home Thursday to um a house full of water we got home around 5 o'clock uh the house is full of water um four or five inches in some spots and uh little puddles here and there around the other uh pieces of it but we are flooded man and uh it's been one heck of three weeks let me tell you just trying to get our life together so again I'm displaced that's why I'm in a different Studio again shout out to Mission City Church and um just the community overall man like it's been it was it was one of those situations you you go and you help people do the thing that you never expect to have happened to you and then literally a week later I'm standing there and I need people to help us tear out the floors and do those types of things too so um we're in the process now I'm going to share that Journey with you guys on our YouTube channel so if that does interest you I'm going to bring you up to speed on what that looks like how we're going to mitigate this from the future you know this was a once in a lifetime storm and they happen if you followed this channel you've heard me say you know Tampa Bay hasn't had a direct shot of a hurricane in 105 years and um it came 104 years and it came so um what what does that look like what does it mean to certain people y'all the the devastation in our communities is astronomical this Saturday I've got a video coming com out for you guys about Shore Acres in St Petersburg and that's one of those neighborhoods that floods regularly even during thunderstorms and there wasn't a single block in that entire development that entire Community that's old by the way is you know 50s and 60s um that there wasn't a pile of debris in front of their house and it was super sad to see um but also just seeing people go to work and rebuild super I mean it warms your heart and um also breaks your heart at the same time so just trying to get you guys in the mix of what's going on in our lives and I'm not going to go to full length tonight but I just wanted to pop in here because so many people have reached out to us so Vlad thank you brother it is great to see you and uh again thank you guys for your support and prayers um and uh just you know knowing where things are and how difficult they've been for a lot of people the one thing I'll say is like you know we have had so many things go our way since this has occurred even though um we're completely moved out of our home and uh I'll walk you guys through that here in a second um but so many people have stepped into our lives and gave the support um even though I'm terrible at asking for help and uh please hear my heart on this I'm not on here asking anybody for anything um and please don't take that as Pride either I'm just I'm sharing with you guys our experience so far so yeah Kate and I came home um Thursday evening drove across the state man the devastation all the way across the state was just fascin F inting I've got video that I'll share with you guys here um in the upcoming weeks of us driving back through the middle of the state Plant City you know Orlando Lakeland I mean there's so many areas that were affected by the storm it's just fascinating so um it's going to be I think you guys will be shocked when you see some of this stuff like the power of these storms and what they can do um it just fascinating so um yeah we came home and water in the house you know we open the garage and you could already see there was water on certain items and it's like okay what is that going to mean and then we walk in the back door and there was a rug and we did a pretty good job like I think I've shared this before like um we have all metal bed frames in our house we don't have wood um very um you dressers and those types of things we do a pretty good job of getting everything up whenever we evacuate for a storm and this is my second time evacuating the family's been gone the last two major hurricane threats in the area which never arrive um but uh I always try to put everything up on the bed and just get them off the floor because again we're so high in elevation if we ever were to flood we knew it would be from rainwater and ultimately that's what ended up happening and we're still in the investigation phase but here's here's what I can share with you all of our bedrooms were hard wood floors and I've shared this on this channel before if you move to Florida don't put wood in your house it is by far the worst decision um it looks nice but putting wood on a concrete slab uh concrete is porous and if there's water around the foundation concrete can pull it right in um it can pull it up through through the floor it can pull it in through the walls and ultimately it's going to lead to um either mold or mildew issues and we had already had suspected there had been some water damage in the past there wasn't any uh current evidence of water um no molder mildew smell none of that stuff but um this the floor was soaked and it it's a engineered hardwood probably put in and I'm if I had to guess I'd say the early 2000s or late 90s it was that um engineered hardwood Brazilian Cherry kind of look that was very popular in the '90s and 2000s um in the house there in the four bedrooms and when you stood on it it was water was squeezing up through it so I knew it wasn't going to make it um we were we didn't have power until Sunday but I was able to jump in um put generators in the house get uh AC in there I'm sorry uh fans in there and dehumidifiers just going to work just trying to make sure that we weren't going to um turn into a mold bomb um and dry the house out pretty good on the following Wednesday we had the all of the floors tore out in the entire house um so we had tile throughout the main living spaces of the home and approximately a th square foot in the bedrooms of hardwood flooring and when those floors came up man the smell of uh mildew underneath it just in that week was overwhelming overwhelming so um definitely uh zero out of 10 do not recommend doing that ever um you know tile is a great way to go luxury vinyl plank is something that people love to do but you know as we look at our flowing choices during this remodel phase we will not be doing that and the reason for that is because um I don't have any if this ever is to happen again and um I don't think it will and again I'm going to work on some mitigation things that I'll share with you guys later um if it was let's just say for the sake of I'm going to prepare as if just so you guys know um if it was then you got to P pull that stuff out and let it dry out and then put it back into the house and um we already had to move everything we owned into a pod and into the garage and we're currently living in a RV on our lawn along with a bunch of other people in the area because when I drove through Shore Acres today there was so many RVs out there in pods and people's driveways it was nuts man um but we will be going tile and the reason for that is is because that way if we flood that's not going to be a problem for me um we're doing PVC baseboard my my house is a concrete it's a block construction so it's not stick built and that's important to note because we have insulation up five inches plus we have um uh it's plaster not drywall which makes a difference as well because that's a concrete product rather than a um fiberboard like you you do in a drywall and uh we're just going to prepare the house the best we can to take on approxim four to five inches of water if that ever occurs again is that the end all be all no you know at the end of the day mother nature will have its way um and the Lord will have his way on um more importantly but we're going to prepare as if okay so um my wife is getting the remodel that we had hoped we were G to do in the next three to five years I did not plan on doing it this way nor did I want to do it this way um and it's going to be a long road man we're again I don't have flood and Insurance in my house CU we're not required to have it we're in an X flood zone 40t above water so y'all we're carrying this we already got the letter of deniability we still went through the process that way we notified everybody um but we it's not happening right so this is on us and this was our risk factor and what do I mean by that I've shared many times um you know publicly before and through YouTube that we understand the the risk that comes along that is associated with living in the State of Florida especially coastal living and as a family we um we're willing to accept that risk uh along with a lot of other people right um 22 million people live in the state of Florida almost 23 million I think now and majority of us live on the coast so I'm not alone in this and I'm not saying that I'm smart and I'm not saying that that's not um I'm not saying that there's not some uh pride in that but this is home to us we love it here and for the foreseeable future this is where our roots are planted and we're going to help this community rebuild along with ourselves and um you know you're your mess T your message typically comes from your mess and um I've learned a lot of things I've also learned a lot of other areas where where flooding has occurred and where it hasn't and um that is a useful experience for my craft and um it'll help me serve our clients a lot better and help our team serve our clients a lot better so um yeah man just bringing you guys up to speed I got some U more comments here let me see here see uh Stephen says it's Florida you have to uh accept and uh expect and accept it when you move here it's amazing to watch everyone get right to work the recovery I agree man like the the the helping hand the hand up is phenomenal the sense of community that occurs when a disaster strikes and I know that this is a thing in our country and this is something I'm super proud of um when it comes to being an American like this is still part of what happens for us and I'm proud to be around people who take that serious and um aren't selfish with with their their acts of service so thank you guys for those of you who jump in there um Stephen also says look on the bright side you get to remodel according to your taste uh we lost power on all the perishable food bright side the fridges got cleared out time for good cleaning absolutely yes nothing gets your house cleaner than a hurricane there is uh no doubt about that we were super clean when we left um we uh took a Yeti cooler full of meat because my wife refused to let like a couple thousand dollars wor the protein go to waste um in our deep freeze so we took that with us when we when we vacated along with my guitars my family and my dog um and came back we were out of power until Sunday so Wednesday night it went out and if you guys didn't see that we had sustained winds of roughly 100 miles an hour for a few hours it was crazy um St Pete got like 19 inches of rain those oh man and I mean that's just to the south of us and they took a beat down and we're in Largo Southwest lgo on the seino border and Indian Rocks Beach border and uh 12 to 13 inches depending on where you're at there so it was crazy time yeah we will get to uh um renovate according to taste trust me I've got the wife's got a whole Pinterest board put together already with um the things she wants to to do and again I'm going to share that Journey with you guys I know usually I've got you know uh screen visual aids with me and you guys get to see everything and I'll share that with you I'm going to share the the original video of us walking in the house because I'm you know I I record everything before we leave as good practice that way we know if anything gets damaged we can report it to the insurance company so we record every single room all of our personal assets and what the property looks like prior to leaving um and then I record when we come back in just in case and this was that time right we walked in and as soon as I walked in the door you could smell it the doors um were swollen shut like the interior doors you know those are cheap um what do they call them uh Hollow core like it's basically cardboard um even in the new construction houses is nuts uh but those doors were all swollen shut because you know the house had been wet and humid for just 24 hours so you know you couldn't really do anything about that um and then soon as I stepped in the rug started squishing and it was one of those moments right um not a fun thing to come home to you know try to just get get your life in order our fence was knocked down we have a vinyl fence um had like two panels of it get blown out that was the easiest thing to fix honestly you just pop them back in like a Lego set um but the the remainder of the house you you know once you get it open we didn't have power so we had to get all these lights and it was almost you know we got home at 5 by the time we got the water out of the house with squeegees and everything was already pushing 6:30 which is getting dark here um so it was it was a little bit of a whirlwind and then um we've just had so many people step up and help right so uh the RV that we're in right now is a loner from um somebody who who in my real estate Community which what a huge blessing we were trying to figure out where to go because all the air airbnbs were were already booked from everybody vacating um evacuating um hotels were already booked and now you've got all these people displaced that don't have a home to come to so we're like where are we going to stay this is the challenge of this right and then also knowing like you started seeing in the Facebook groups people asking for help and their situation and you know they're single moms and they're looking for homes and it's like what do you do where where do you go you know when you do that you're taking space and we have you know we've worked hard over the last three years to put ourselves in a position where um we could be uh of service when people needed it and here we are in a situation where we need to figure it out too so we were literally considering just buy buying an RV that morning we just moved a client down um who is um head um at the top over at uh uh General RV um I don't know his his exact title but he's one of one of the big guys over there I was literally going to call him that morning and be like hey can you set us up um whether it's to rent one or like just to buy it just so we could figure that situation out and we got the call and what a what a huge blessing to not have to stress out about that and um I don't have a big truck to pull a trailer that we've got a um uh SUV and uh my barber called me he's like hey man what do you need and I was like you know what I need to go pick up this this uh this RV and uh this tollable he's like take my truck and he's got a big Ford F 350 and he just I mean you story after Story this is mine but there are so many others like this right and uh people who have stepped in and and again lent lent a hand and you know from our church showing up that was on Wednesday we got back on Thursday by Sunday I knew I had to to pull the pull the floors I was like everything's gonna have to come out of here cabinets were damaged on the bottom um I didn't know how far it went into the walls like I just didn't know if we were how far that we were going on the demo and I asked for help I think on Sat Friday or Saturday from um just the church man and I had like 20 people in our house we went to church on Sunday came home and they were already waiting in the drive when we get back and uh poor Kate she was completely overwhelmed we are blessed Bey on our wildest imagination but like imagine having a bunch of people show up in your house and like we had been packing for two days right like getting ourselves ready and we we don't have a lot of stuff we're those people that like don't have a ton of stuff but you got three kids in a life you got stuff right but people showed up with Helping Hands and just went to work man and within a few hours we had our entire house in a pod and in the garage and we were down just the kind of like the loose which is always the worst part of moving to be honest with you but we were out of that house man and um the following Wednesday they came in and um and tore up the floors and what a what a just again what a huge blessing to be able to to tap on your community shoulders and I know we're not the only ones like our church Community had already been serving other families and again the week before y'all this is the craziest thing about it like the week before was Hurricane Helen and we were all doing this as a community together right it's so like I said it's such an interesting thing when the when the the the tables get turned and now you're in that situation so um again hear my heart on this like this I'm not looking for any sympathy here please hear me if you know people in the area that are it of or in need please please please help help them okay a lot of people have hard time asking for help this guy right here okay but we we are are good we've got a roof over our head we got food in our belly we're safe right our home is drying out we've got about another week and then I'm going to have it tested for mold and mildew um before we do anything else and then once we get our clean bill there um then I'm going to go to work on rebuilding the home and um doing the water mitigation stuff that I I'll explain to you guys later on on how we're going to do that but I I wanted to jump in here and give an update Brian good evening sir um Brian says glad your family is safe we've been uh reporting to Tampa home owners dumping um their homes and the market and investors how can someone invest when this when it can happen again how can someone invest okay um great great question man this is it's funny that you you brought this up because I'm I'm my video on Saturday is about this thing so the thing I think people have a hard time understanding there's a couple things um about this in general and uh Brian I was ignorant of this just to be transparent until I moved here guys guys there is so much money out there and when I say so much money I mean like people have money all right not everybody and I know most people don't okay and what do I what do I mean by that I'm not that wealthy person that that that can do these types of things but y'all let me just tell you I live in an area where people have second third fourth fifth homes okay I live in an area where people have more money than time and they make enough money that having an inconvenience like this while it does suck right um it isn't doesn't change their plans that's one thing number two we live in an area that is heavily investor um focused right there are a lot of institutional home buyers and home owners here in the greater Tampa Bay area and of Florida in general coastal regions right because the thing that people kind of Miss sometimes is you know real estate is not just a house okay the land has value and in certain areas the land has more value than the home the home is actually an an impediment to unlock the actual value that that property is sitting on and the coast is a prime example of this if you drive up and down and you see these old Coastal Cottages that absolutely have flooded right two or three times or however many it is a lot of those homes and areas are generationally owned they have been passed down generation to generation taxes are low and a lot of people who own those can't afford to rebuild them all the time some of them can some of them can't I don't know the specific numbers I'm going to try to track that stuff down but what you need to know is there are people flush with cash waiting for that individual to get fed up doing that so they can come in bulldoze that Cottage and then build up a three-story beautiful Coastal Home over there and there's a study there's multiple studies that have done on this and this is what my video is about on Saturday um that shows that after a hurricane now this study was done in Florida specifically I try to get it as detail as I could it Florida specifically between 2000 and 2016 um and what it's found was that property values go up for the three years preceding a hurricane for three years property values go up and it's because people come in right and I'm not saying home prices you have to hear what I'm saying here there's a difference between value and price right there's real value there's preceived value there's all different types of value within that okay but if you think about this if someone comes in and they knock down a coastal Cottage that let's say that was for sale for 900 Grand that they couldn't get it because no one wanted to deal with it now they're selling it for 600 Grand because the the the cottage is worth zero as a matter of fact it cost somebody 30 grand to knock it down right now it unlocked the opportunity to build that thing up and when they build it up to three stories and no ground level and you got the garages underneath and now you got a beautiful 3,000 foot Coastal home that thing is going to be worth five or six or seven million doar which increases the value right and what that also does it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the locals because their taxes increase along with that now Florida has a homestead exemption that's that fights this kind of thing but ultimately this is what occurs and it's it's a very interesting thing and um I'm going to get deep on this in in a later subject or I'm sorry in a later video but uh it's a great question that Brian is asking because I know people say that you'd be crazy you're a fool to go in and buy that those properties and once they flooded but y'all there is always somebody ready to take over a beachfront property or near a a a beach adjacent property in the United States there is always somebody with enough money and enough dream and and enough ambition to make that happen right and there are ways to mitigate these things again the Lord controls everything ultimately but just kind of keep that in mind because I know it's hard but if you watch this it's going to happen and you see areas like this Shore Acres is an example in St Petersburg there are many properties being sold as is trashed out mess okay someone's gonna come in there tear it down and build up that's going to happen mark my words and I'm going to document the whole thing you guys all see it but that's how this works it's crazy good question though Brian um Cody my my brother appreciate you uh Pastor Cody is uh um at our church uh he is a youth pastor here and just uh an incredible servant and uh Greatful to have you in our lives brother thank you very much we appreciate you guys of course um Daisy May says I'm a registered Nur going on 46 years of practice uh we always tell patients to put meds in Port and papers and waterproof sick lock bags try to keep the bags in person yes and all this is a good point um just a little nugget y'all you you've got a couple things that are waterproof in your house your dishwasher as an example is waterproof but Daisy's right about this right so putting your stuff in a waterproof bag putting it up out of the way and uh those situations is definitely helpful we we uh take ours with us Daisy like when we evacuate we took our social security cards all that other stuff too but that's a really good Insight um thank you for sharing that I appreciate that uh Corey says hey Juan uh Cory tuning in from Columbus Ohio is always oh yes uh three more weeks brother three more weeks and then we'll have that conversation I do not expect uh for the Maze and blue to be winning this year but however that would make this year right as rain make it right as rain my man so I love that all right uh sorry but that's a myth dishwashers are not water tyght well um they I'm sure water can get in if it comes in the back that's that's probably a good point uh Leonard is making a good point check check your uh check your dishwasher but I've never had water come out so that tells me that most likely it's probably um watertight now I'm sure it could go the other way but it's a good point Le Leonardo's safe documents need to be put in a safe place waterproof them to the best of your ability I think that that's good sound advice for Daisy and it's also fair from Leonardo so thank you Leo appreciate that my man um she said what she say daisy May says always take meds an important papers with you yeah you're G to absolutely need them and that's some of like the this is a good point some of the big challenges that people face after this is you know people are on oxygen machines or they're in you know they get dialysis and those those places are don't have power and like there's all these things that occur The Fallout um if you will from uh being out of power from having roads flooded there's so many different things that happen from a community perspective and um you know so just just be mindful and y'all it's going to be a long road to rebuild that's what everybody needs to be aware of you know when it comes down to that but you know just seeing people swoop into action um get after it right away and we're already starting to see beaches reopen which is great I will get you guys uh updated on a list um for those of you who um are planning on flying in and um still considering moving to the Bay here um I'll get you guys a list of the beaches that are open so you can you know um go and spend your time and a lot of our beach beach accesses are torn up they're or destroyed totally uh so the beaches aren't open but the other the big thing to be aware of is um sewage runoff is one component of it the beaches they're testing them daily and from what I see um we are on the good side of of any bacterial uh anxiet but that can still occur right so I'm talking about salt water I'm not talking about fresh water um but the big thing you guys need to be aware of is there is glass and screws and drywall screw like there's just debris all over the place and a lot of the beaches already went to work cleaning this up but it's not complete um I was down on the beach last week I made sure to wear shoes and I saw stuff everywhere everywhere so it's definitely something you want to uh be mindful of if you're planning on traveling to the area and it's one of those double-edged swords like we need to get open we need to welcome our visitors back to the area because you know you guys know if you've been to Tampa Bay we take in almost 17 million visitors a year we're grateful for that um that's what huge driver of our economy here um so we need that support but also we you need space to be able to fix things and rehabilitate and you know guys driving down these roads you know there's stuff in the road you know there's screws and and glass and like you know people thrown it out to the road and they got to wait for FEMA to come pick this stuff up and let me tell you when you're waiting on government you're waiting ain't nothing about the government fast period nothing right um don't believe me go check it out it's it's ridiculous um in terms of how long it takes H however we have to give Grace all right um the tri the trees and the sticks and all that stuff are still sitting out on the curbs the counties are working through it the cities are working through the cleanup you know we've got trash mountains all over the place I drove by Florida midatlantic which is our Amphitheater which is on the far East side of Tampa out by Hard Rock seminal when we came in back to Tampa they had already started putting trash out in the middle of the fairgrounds out there like literally trash Mountain last uh last week when I went back out that way it was even higher you drive by the um landfill here in canels County and it is there is excavators five stories in the air right on top of these trash mountains because you got to put this stuff somewhere right it's it's crazy town um I didn't it's so hard to wrap my mind around so I'm sorry I don't have video to share with you guys again um you can see Saturday's video If you go check that out this this Saturday and last Saturday you'll see what I'm talking about next week um on this live stream I will give you guys the kind of walk through the house I just got to check it with the boss she gets a little bit anxious about us showing our house um because of the kids and y'all if you read the comments on YouTube you know why um so I I'll see what she's comfortable with but I you know I'm very open to share with you guys our process our progress um lack of it whatever it is um so you can kind of see um you know just what's going on and and what it takes you know there's Municipal inspections involved then a lot of things have to happen in order for us to to get back on our feet and we're not the only Community right so like I'm sharing this with you guys like hon for goodna sake my peeps in Houston have been ravished more times than we care to admit so we're not alone in this and uh um again I I just wanted to give you guys an update you know we yes we flooded um had nothing to do with storm surge had to do with all with rainwater um some of it came in um through the back door I'm pretty sure um the rest of it I think came in from the actual Foundation I that's a whole another situation like I said I'll walk you guys through that um but we we are safe we got a we've got a place to stay um and we're already in the process of taking care of things so we are very blessed we are very fortunate um I we have our health I have my family right and we have our faith and those things are the most important to us um and uh you know we'll continue to pray for our community and for for those of you who have reached out to us thank you and God bless you guys we we really um couldn't have have done it without without your help um and a lot of those messages man the first two weeks got us through because honestly the last two days I just started to come out of this like it I mean the days just went they just went October's gone I don't even know where it went you know and and just kind of like loopy it was almost like being in I don't know sedated it was just weird how things were just happening to us and not not on purpose but we're back in that phase now and um feel good you can see my wife starting to um feel pretty comfortable with things the kids are back to to school and um and swim and you know we're getting back to life so um I'm excited for that I'm excited to see our community rebuild and um come together and uh I'm I'm grateful for the the support and I just wanted to pop in here tonight and just thank each and every one of you for that regardless of whether you reached out or not if you were thinking about us and our family and our community most importantly um thank you thank you because um they all need it we all need it so appreciate you guys and um again we'll be back next Tuesday with some regular scheduled programming and I will keep you guys a breast of everything what's going on in our world um Costo assciated with Renovations and rebuilds tell you right now cost us eight grand to get all that flooring out of the house 2100 sare F feet to tear all of it out was 8,000 bucks $4 a square foot is the going rate in Tampa Bay for a demo holy cow holy cow and no the insurance will not be covering it because we don't have fun insurance so um that is our update guys thank you so much we appreciate it and like I said I'll see you next week make sure you check out this weekend's video you'll see exactly what I'm talking about blue roofs and trash and it's just nuts so um God bless y'all have a great night take care