TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — A Treasure Island family is settling into their newly rebuilt home that was damaged by Tropical Storm Eta in 2020.

What You Need To Know

  • A family in Treasure Island has finally moved into their elevated home after a year of reconstruction

  • Their home suffered some damage from Tropical Storm Eta and decided that it would be best to tear it down and rebuild, elevating it in the process

  • The Fleming family moved into their rebuilt home on Sept. 11, not long after Hurricane Idalia made landfall

At the time, the Fleming family lived in a one-story house but decided to elevate it after seeing thousands of dollars in damage from the 2020 storm.

Eric and Cressica Fleming say they moved to Treasure Island from the Apollo Beach area about five years ago.

In 2020, the damage from Eta was so much that they decided it would be best to tear down the house and rebuild it from scratch, which required elevating the property to meet current code.

“After that first one, I don't — I couldn't do it again," Eric said. "It was exhausting. It was stressful.”

He said it took a year of hard work to create something new that they could call home.

It’s a place that Spectrum News actually visited back in April with Matthew Carr of Winway Homes while construction was still going on.

During a tour of the home, Carr said storm surge was a serious problem for homes in the area.

“If we had a storm surge of about 7 feet, there would be about 3 foot of water in all these homes,” he said.

A few months later, Hurricane Idalia would bring several feet of storm surge to Treasure Island and many of the homes were damaged.

“All these houses got hit here,” Cressica Fleming said.

She said it’s a weird feeling, because she knows what it’s like to see something cherished get washed away or damaged by a storm.

“It's sad to lose valuables and then have to pick and choose what you can salvage,” Cressica said.

Idalia made landfall Aug. 30 and the Flemings moved back into their house on Sept. 11.

When neighbors sent her and Eric a picture of their home in the midst of the surge, Cressica said they knew their house would be safe.

“You can see this is our neighbor's house right next door — you see where the water is and that's their mailbox,” Eric Fleming said. “So this is our house right here. And, essentially, we just had a hose off to the garage a little bit and a little bit, you know, no damage.”

As Cressica put it, living life on the Florida coast is an adventure — and that adventure can be tough when people you care about decide it’s no longer for them.

“My really good friend across the street, she survived one before and now she wants to move," Cressica said. "It's overwhelming, so, it's just easier to maybe find a condo or build up.”

When it came to their house, though, Cressica said their pool was the only thing that was damaged.

“I just went around my house with a hose and that was about it,” she said.