KEY WEST, FLA. (WSVN) - It was a rough walk for a man who was forced to carry his dog while evacuating his Key West home, and the video of him wading through waist deep water as Hurricane Ian showed its force has since gone viral.
Dylon Estevez was one of the many people in Key West who saw a flood of trouble Tuesday night.
“The street was dry two hours beforehand, and the next thing you know, water is coming flooding into the house,” Estevez said. “It was very quick, very fast.”
He said it was around 9:30 p.m. when he and his roommate were playing video games, hoping there were no power outages. Soon after, his roommate noticed water in the living room.
“I kind of didn’t believe him. I thought he had spilled something and was messing with me. I turned around and saw all of the water coming in,” he said.
The water would quickly rise.
“It was about toe deep, and then within 15 to 20 minutes, it was up to your ankles,” Estevez said.
He and his roommate scrambled to lift what they could off of the floor.
“What do we need to get up? Lift the couch if we could. We couldn’t, so we kind of lost that, lost some other stuff– my bed,” he said.
And in his room was his 15-month-year-old Weimaraner, Rookie.
“She was actually on my bed in the room, which was floating at the time,” he said. “We were trying to keep her dry, up, so she’s not walking around wading through the water, and she was very, ‘What is happening, I can’t walk around anywhere,’ yelping and crying.”
Packing what he could in a matter of minutes, Estevez and his roommate would make the trek, walking several blocks, with Rookie in tow, to get out as fast as they could, to call a friend for help.
“Car alarms going off, there were so many cars under water back in that area,” Estevez said.
He would document his ordeal by recording a play by play on his phone, which was uploaded to social media.
“I just thought, you know, it would be good to document it and started filming,” he said.
He said he does not have renters insurance, so he’ll be checking back over the next few days, until he can see the damage left behind by the storm surge.
“I still can’t get over there. We already took a drive over there. It’s still flooded like crazy over there,” he said.
Born and raised in Key West, for Estevez and Rookie, this is their home. Even with all the action surrounding Hurricane Ian, they’ll be just fine.
“She’s all energy and ready to go, acting like nothing happened,” Estevez said.
As for Rookie, she’s just getting used to living at someone else’s house for the next few days.
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