LEE COUNTY
The Harlem Heights community is facing significant damage from the storm.
It’s a bleak time for homeowners in Harlem Heights, the water after Jan was waist deep for the people who live there.
Many residents have been left sleeping on water-soaked mattresses or on the floor of mold-infested homes because they have nowhere else to go.
In the neighborhood, garbage fills the streets, leaving behind a stench, and people like Barbara Vazquez live in the middle of it.
“It’s starting to smell. Animals begin to bury him. Soon we will have serious health problems here,” Vasquez said.
Vazquez lives in a two-story home and had to move her children upstairs when Ian hit. Water rushed into her first-floor bedroom and in the blink of an eye she saw both her cars submerged.
Later, she watched her neighbors suffer.
“If you take a picture of a family standing here, they need help, they need to get out of here,” Vasquez said.
The non-profit organization Better Together came to the rescue. Isis LaRose went door to door to get the family the help they needed.
“So we write down the needs for these families and then we go out and bring them things. We also take note of what is still needed and we have volunteers who adopt these families and one by one deliver the items they need directly to them,” LaRose said.
Vasquez said that people have been living in dangerous conditions for the past 12 days.
“These poor people are trying to take out their trash, but they’re still living there, they have nothing left,” Vasquez said.
Better Together was in Harlem Heights last week and will be there again this week. If you would like to donate or volunteer, please visit their website BetterTogetherus.org.
