A House Recovery Picture Post

It’s almost unthinkable that it has been 19 months since the hurricanes swept through our life. I recall at the time thinking it would be about a year to recover from that disaster.  Now, I am hoping that by the 2-year mark we are back into our home with it fully functioning again. I thought I might do a photo-look-back blog post as a good place to summarize the recovery journey.

October 2024 – Post two hurricanes (one with damaging flood water, the other with damaging wind), we had gutted the house, unsure what our next step might be. We started to explore options – from repairing to lifting to demo & rebuilding. All had various pros and cons. When we found out that the house was “substantially damaged,” per FEMA regulations, it meant that an elevation approach was required. We settled on demo & rebuild using a local builder (general contractor) we had experience with.

Jan 2025 – A Demo Permit was applied for and architect discussions on a custom design started. At this point, we were also working on getting any FEMA support we were eligible for, finalizing insurance payments, and exploring funding options. For those who don’t know, most flood insurance policies have a cap on payout. And that cap payment will NOT be enough to rebuild your house, anywhere, these days.  Our retirement financial plan did not include having a mortgage payment. So, this was a stressful time to manage through – from the grief of all we lost to the uncertainty of financing and timing. Demo was completed in March, and yes, there were issues to resolve (double foundation, garage damage) just to take the house down.

May 2025 – A Build Permit was applied for.  Yes, it took that long to get a design and all the engineering paperwork done. With re-loops, confirmations on building codes, finalization of the build contract, and understanding of insurance requirements for the build stage. At this point, I was also attempting to restart living and began working with a trauma therapist. And I began the “do things to be distracted” time of my recovery!  The “house” remained an open lot of sand.

Summer 2025 – Waiting on build permit, worrying about new flood season coming (reorganizing the garage storage for flood protection), working the build finances, and trying to restart living more “normally”.  And yes, the “distraction projects” took a lot of time and energy.  Our permit was finally issued in September 2025. 

October – November 2025 – Beginning the build and more issue resolution.  For example, the original survey was done wrong (wrong setbacks – no we are not re-engineering the house, let’s find a different solution), there was vandalism in town on pilling markers which resulted in delay (not ours as they figured out a vandalism-deterrent approach during the re-work delay on other properties), a buried septic system was found, the massive piling equipment broke down (3 days and 5 trucks at our house to fix it!). But we got the foundation of a house started with 24 underground pilings set.

My agave plants that survived the flood decided to give off their death bloom. Then we determined that another set of palm trees (5 large Washingtonians) had too much damage from the wind and needed to come down, or “they will come down on your roof in the next big wind storm”.  My plant journal (yes, I have one) now indicated that I lost more than 85% of the plants I had around the property – between the flood waters, post flood drought, house demo, and now, end of life cycle and wind damage.

December 2025 – January 2026 – After a long holiday break, work continued on masonry. The house living area will be up 15 ft, so cement block pilings and break-away block walls ago up after foundation and base floor.  And yes, the issues continued as we had “exploding cement blocks.”  A bad batch of cement blocks literally exploded when concrete poured into the columns – that is not supposed to happen!  Another delay as they resolved the issue and redid work.

February 2026 – It’s beginning to look like a house!  Floor trusses and carpentry. Walls go up and roof trusses arrive. Getting interior stairs roughed in late February means we can see the interior walls and what our views will look like.

March 2026 – The house is “dried in” (roof coating, windows covered) and we begin the “MEP rough in” – mechanicals (HVAC), plumbing, electrical. We also begin the selection process – identifying appliances (important to know for electrical wiring), fixtures, granite, tile, and much more.  And we start looking at furniture, especially for long lead time items.

April 2026 – Rough in continues. It’s taking longer than expected as most of the sub-contractors are working multiple jobs (so much recovery building going on) and we get a day or half day, here and there.  On a positive note, with the small builder, we’ve been able to make some modifications on the run (no change order cost), which has helped when more issues occur.  Like the bathroom drain pipes immediately over flooring joist connections or the windows we put in the design just 5 months ago no longer being manufactured. 

We don’t have a completion date set, but we are making forward progress. I’m looking forward to drywall and tile… then it will really feel like a house.

Hope you enjoyed this picture journey!

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