ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. — “Here we go,” Merritt Horan said, lifting her storage space door.

“Welcome to the disaster zone,” she said.

The artist has a pretty good sense of humor — tools of her profession are strewn about, rusted, molded and ruined. All evidence that they were damaged and destroyed by flood waters from recent hurricanes.

But she managed to save some of her art supplies, all stacked in neat rows in her apartment.

“Yeah, I normally don’t have an entire storage unit in my living room,” Horan said, looking around her second-story home. “I’ve just basically had to bring up anything that was above the three-and-a-half, four-foot water level. I brought it upstairs immediately after."

Horan lost a year’s worth of work — teaching art and crafting classes at a hotel that sustained major damage.

But she’s still creating.

Painting murals is her favorite.

“I think you can kind of stretch your wings,” said Horan.

But here it’s still life. She arranges, photographs and paints them.

Today it’s dragon fruit.

And this weekend — it’s even better.

Creative Pinellas called. And now, she’s in a show this weekend Dec. 7, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. So that helps, too.

“I could cry. Honestly, it’s one of the best things that’s happened since all of the trash hit the fan," said Horan.

It’s someone looking out for artists, helping them shut the door on this difficult time.