- Steinhatchee neighbors are working to recovery from a major boat fire on the river.
- The people who lived on the boat have less than a week to remove the boat from the river.
- Watch the video above to see the challenges they're facing after their home went up in flames.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
A boat that two Steinhatchee neighbors called home— now a total loss after catching on fire.
Evans - "Gone.. everything's gone."
I'm Kenya Cardonne in the Steinhatchee neighborhood. I'm investigating how it happened and how the community is helping them get back on their feet.
Kinks Evans & Dave Jensen, Neighbors - "I wake up in the middle of the night with flashbacks."
Flashbacks of a massive fire
Kinks Evans and Dave Jensen lived on this house boat in Steinhatchee for more than a year.
Evans and Jensen - "If anybody can help, we'd appreciate it. Doesn't matter if it's a dollar. We're not giving up on our dream."
A boat that made it through Hurricane Idalia, Hurricane Debby and was supposed to make it to through their dream of spending retirement on the sea— now a total loss at the bottom of the river.
They tell me the boat's battery management system failed to detect smoke coming from the lithium-ion batteries on board.
Evans - "There was this explosion."
An explosion that sent their boat and Dave himself into flames.
Evans - "We literally had 20 minutes to get off the boat."
And thankfully they did, but they had to leave behind hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment and priceless memorabilia.
Scott Walmer, Neighbor - "I was crying."
Neighbor and friend Scott Walmer, one of many in the community who immediately stepped up to help, offering them a place to stay.
Walmer - "There was no gray area where they were going when they didn't have a house. No different if something happened here, I would've been on that boat."
Kinks and Dave say they're thankful for the neighbors who have donated money, clothes and food for them and little Bandit, but they've got a long road ahead of them.
Evans - "We've reached out to the community and said look, for the first time in our life, we're actually asking for help."
Florida Fish & Wildlife has given them until Tuesday to get the boat out of the river, a job they tell me costs at least $10,000 to hire someone to do.
Kinks and Dave tell me between the stress of figuring out how they're going to pay for that and find a new home.. their hopes now lay in the hands of the community.
"We are going to find another boat. We're going to do this. This is what we've wanted for a long time."
