FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Piles of debris could be seen outside of nearly every home in Fort Lauderdale’s Edgewood neighborhood Tuesday, as cleanup continued from historic floods.
The neighborhood, located north of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, which had problems of its own, was one of the hardest-hit in Broward County after the torrential storm.
Jenny Sims was one Edgewood resident dealing with the aftermath.
“You know, we’re real people and we don’t have a house,” Sims said, through tears. “We feel like nobody cares.”
Sims said she rode out the storm on her bed.
“The rain started coming and coming and coming and coming and then within a couple of hours it just kept rising higher and higher and luckily my bed is high off the ground so I just stayed in the bed,” she said.
But the damage wasn’t just emotional. Sims said wading through the contaminated flood waters even made her sick.
“I ended up getting sepsis and blood poisoning in my feet,” she said. “I just got out of the hospital (Monday) night.”
Meanwhile, work was underway to repair damage at the Lighthouse Crew sober house for men.
The men there banded together to clear out damaged things and fix up what was left.
“They were semi-homeless before they got here,” Lighthouse Crew President Jim Eschbach said. “We’re hoping that they won’t be homeless again.”
He added: “We’ve been moving along pretty well, the lord Jesus Christ has strengthened us enough to carry forth this good work.”
The walls back at Sims’ house also had to be broken up.
“We had to cut almost over two feet of the wall just to get the water out,” she said.
Her emotions overflowed as desperation and loneliness set in.
“It’s just really hard,” Sims said. “Especially when you don’t have much yourself and then what you do have you’ve lost it all.”
A GoFundMe page has been created to assist Sims during her time of need.