Florida man springs to action to help rescue elderly neighbors as rising floodwaters swamp homes

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Heavy downpours on Monday led to unprecedented flash flooding in Eastern Florida, and in one neighborhood a neighbor jumped into action to save people in distress in their homes. 

Rick Addante said multiple of his neighbors in Turtle Creek, a part of Palm Bay, Florida, were elderly, sick or not very mobile, and unable to evacuate as waters kept rising. 

“Nobody expected this to happen,” Addante said. “All of a sudden, everything just started rising so quickly, and the streets started filling up.” 

He said every time they expected the water to be at its highest, it got even higher. 

“It became really clear how serious it was going to become,” Addante said. 

Addante said he has two neighbors who they were particularly concerned about: one, an 80-year-old man named Terry who lives alone with his dog and recently had open-heart surgery, and another with progressive Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) who was unable to evacuate with his family because he was in a motorized wheelchair. 

“Both of them were in kind of dire straits,” he said, describing how he kept going through the flooding between the houses to keep track of how the neighbors were doing.

Addante said he and other neighbors banded together to make sure they were both doing OK as they waited for help evacuating. 

He said at this point, water was pouring into swimming pools and backyard from the seawall behind houses, and things became even more urgent. 

Addante said he got Terry and his dog ready to go, as water reached up to their knees within the house. 

After a little while of moving back and forth between Terry’s, the other neighbors’ and his own home, they began hearing loud roars from airboats as they neared their neighborhood. 

Addante, Terry, Terry’s dog Bella and their belongings waited until the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission airboats got to them, and then they got moving on evacuating him. 

Video shared by Addante shows him helping carry out Terry and the dog, Bella, who was terrified of the airboat sounds, along with the Florida FWC officers. 

Trash cans were floating down the streets, and flooding was nearly up to the top of the mailboxes as they began evacuating Terry. 

Together, they brought him to an airboat, helped load him on and made sure he was secure, then took him to safety, where he was able to get warm and dry and reconnect with his family. 

Addante said other rescuers stayed, and they moved to the next house, where they evacuated the neighbor with ALS, along with his wife and daughter. 

Other videos show Addante helping with the process of evacuation and coordinating with FWC on rescues. 

The FWC teams continued rescuing people trapped in their homes, as Addante said he found out about another house with three people trapped on a second story due to flooding. 

After confirming there were in fact people inside, the FWC teams rushed over. 

He said while he was assisting with the rescues, other neighbors jumped in to help his family, getting generators up and running and checking on his wife and kids. 

“It really was a big team effort of a lot of people from a lot of churches, and neighbors who came together,” Addante said. 

Addante said he was grateful to his neighbors for helping out and jumping in, and they deserve just as much credit for the effort. 

Just a day later, floodwaters are down, but the work to clean up the mess begins. 

He said people have already begun ripping out damaged flooring and carpets from their flooded homes.