Sarasota residents cleaning up following historic flood from Debby: 'I have to start at zero'

SARASOTA, Fla. - From the outside and inside of Loranna Hochstetler's home, a water line remains.

"The doors, all my interior doors look like this," she said.

The line remains an unwanted reminder of what Debby left behind.

"It was all the way up to here, all the way through," she said.

Water remains in her dryer, freezer and pots and pans.

"This is devastating. It’s like my brain can’t wrap its mind around what all this means," she said.

READ: Neighbors band together to help others during Sarasota flood

She and her husband have owned the home off Gerhardt Street for nine years. They’ve never experienced anything like this.

"It does make you feel a little scared. Is it going to happen again? I don’t know," said Hochstetler.

The couple was in the middle of home upgrades. As the water poured in, she tried to save what she could.

"It was so completely out of my control. I’m the type of person who needs to fix things. I can fix things. No. There’s nothing I can do, it just kept raining and getting worse," she said.

Across the way from Hochstetler’s home, off Bahia Vista.

North Port Officer Jordan Gray Davis and public works employee David Young navigated an airboat through Pinecraft.

READ: Newly built Lakewood Ranch neighborhood trapped by flooded streets after Debby

"Definitely the flooding has gone down some, but it’s still kind of moving with the current. Water is washing in from the lake and river that we are now," said Officer Gray Davis.

The pair from North Port are part of a joint task force with Florida Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 6, Sarasota Police Department and others.

They continued to work Tuesday to rescue those still stuck without power and water in their homes.

"There are quite a few people that we have evacuated and their houses are underwater and destroyed," said Officer Gray Davis.

John Wagner is one of them.

"More and more water that kept coming and it just ruined everything, everything is gone," said Wagner.

With only a duffle bag and a bike, Wagner peddled out from the neighborhood he once called home.

"I have to start from zero. I have no home now. I have no possessions, I have no tools. Just the shirt and pants I have on. That’s all I have," he said.

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