Hurricane Milton lashed the greater Tampa Bay region back in October.
And nearly half a year later, some residents are still dealing with floodwaters, and don't have running water or electricity.
Don Ferguson's entire home, in which he's lived for nearly two decades, was flooded during Milton.
The problem now: It's March, and the water still hasn't gone away. It's finally started to recede some, so he can walk to his front door by laying down wood planks so he doesn't slip on mud along the way.
"I've lost everything,” Ferguson said. “I've worked my whole life. My whole life is on this property."
His home got multiple feet of water. Nearly everything inside is destroyed. And outside, the cars and motorcycles that he liked working on are still inaccessible.
He has a 1964 Triumph TR4 that he had just finished restoring, along with a couple motorcycles.
He thinks they're lost causes at this point.
"I'm struggling mostly mentally,” Ferguson said. “It's very rough on the brain. I feel like I'm worthless, like, who cares?"
Ferguson says he hasn’t received any help from FEMA.
“I told them how much flooding [I have],” Ferguson said. “I've updated them, sent them pictures. They don't get back. They don't do nothing.”
And Ferguson might not even have it the worst on his block.
It's a total loss
Next door, Richard Beckwith stands outside the fence of the property he’s owned for 11 years. The entire place — front and back — is still surrounded by water.
“The first thing I did [when I saw it], was stood here and looked at it and cried. Everything's gone,” Beckwith said.
Beckwith hasn't been able to go inside for weeks.
“Septic tanks just got flooded, and it's all in the water,” Beckwith said. “I don't care what they say, this is a safety hazard.
"It's a little emotionally rough. I mean, when you come back to it and actually see the devastation and what the water is capable of doing. I mean, I've got a home here that's now not even sitting on its foundation correctly because of the water, and I don't know what to do."
Beckwith says his house is lopsided. He points to where the roof is separating in the front, and his screen rooms are dropping.
"Yeah, the house is screwed,” Beckwith said.
He says he's lost over half a million dollars with the house and all the inventory he kept in it, where he ran his own second-hand sales business.
And the flooding began a really unfortunate series of events in his life.
“In October, we had Milton. In November, I had back surgery from a car accident. In December, I got told I had cancer,” Beckwith said. “The last few months have been devastating, and now I’m walking around with cancer.”
At 64 years old, he said he expected to die in that house. But now, he says, he's starting from scratch.
Welcome to 'Lake Fernandez'
On the corner of the block, Patrick Fernandez got a bit luckier. The flooding didn't reach his home, but it did overtake nearly his entire property.
"We're looking at Lake Fernandez,” he said while surveying his property.
He was in the process of creating a farm on the land, and he wanted to raise chickens, and get into aquaponics.
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“I was raising koi and tilapia in my pond, and I was going to do a fruit and vegetable garden on the side and have the water cycle back-and-forth,” Fernandez said. “But my main goal was to have the property be self-sufficient … I wish something could be done about the drainage.”
During the storm, all of his progress was washed away.
“The water went in my workshop,” he said. “The water went in my shed. I've got tons of tools that are ruined.”
Some of the boxes that he kept his tools in are still filled to the brim with floodwaters.
All three houses on the block are still without water and electricity.
"I've been living with two-and-a-half gallon jugs in my kitchen and in my bathroom to wash my hands, and stuff and going to Planet Fitness to take a shower every day,” Fernandez said.
His truck remained in floodwaters for nearly two months. Miraculously, he was able to save it.
But he says dealing with the aftermath of the storm led to him losing his job.
“I had a hotel voucher, and the hotels were an hour away,” Fernandez said. “I was in South Tampa, and I ended up showing up to work late a couple times, and that ended up with me getting into an argument, because I gave my clients away and it just ended up being bad.”
Despite all the issues, Fernandez said he’s trying to keep his spirits high.
“That's the only thing that keeps me sane right now, but I'm usually pretty optimistic person, and I've looked at this as if God's washing my property away," Fernandez said. "He's washing all the bad energy off my property."
Who to turn to?
The three men don't have flood insurance.
Tankers from the state came to pump out some of the water, but they left after a couple of weeks without finishing.
They say they're looking for more help from Pasco County, the state, or anywhere.
Jason Mickel, who heads up the county's public works department, says his hands are tied.
That's because the men live on private property.
"That's not the county's charge to take someone who flooded and may have lost a car, may have had damage in their home, maybe lost a shed, or their whole property is still under underwater, or their driveway got washed out on their private property. That's a private property matter.
"Every one of these subdivisions that was built under the permitting rules ... has their own system that they manage as well. So they have their own set of pipes and pumps and ponds and conveyance system and treatment systems that they're supposed to be managing. They're supposed to be making sure that that is all operating properly.”
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Mickel says the homeowner could get private pumping services, although he knows that's not affordable for many.
“I didn’t even check,” Ferguson said. “Who could afford that?”
The three men say they think recent developments around their neighborhood caused their street to act as a sort of bowl that holds the water from other nearby places with higher elevations.
But Mickel says the main factor that should be remembered is that the 2024 hurricane season was unprecedented.
"Twenty inches in October was about 400-500 times more rainfall than the state of Florida in that area gets at any given time,” Mickel said. “In the previous 100 years of data, that was way beyond record rainfall."
And for future storms, he says Pasco will try to improve water flow and drainage between the county's public drainage system, and private systems that connect with it.
A recent $585 million grant that the county received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will also help them identify and work on some of the most prominent stormwater issues for the region’s low-income communities.
“Anything where I have conveyance, anything where I can move water through a system, some of that is just expensive … that's where this money will allow us to tackle some of those bigger projects,” Mickel said.
But that doesn't help Don Ferguson right now. He just wants to know when things are going to get back to normal.
"You know, they go home and climb in a nice, warm, dry bed every night. I don't,” Ferguson said. “I think about this. When I go to bed and when I wake up, that's all I can think about. Is my property, the flooding.”
Right now, he and his two dogs are staying in a Florida room with a friend of his girlfriend.
Ferguson had a cat, but she died shortly after the storms.
“I think the storm just freaked her out, and then taking her to a new place, and I had to keep her in a cage so she couldn't run, and I just it was a terrible thing,” Ferguson said.
He's planning to park an RV in his front yard and live in it until the flooding recedes. He can't right now, because the ground is still muddy from months of standing water.
