Florida couple homeless after boat sinks because of Hurricane Dorian

Credit: DaytonDailyNews

Issac Allan and his girlfriend Madison Oliver spent Thursday morning pulling clothes, a scooter, a generator and anything else they could from inside their little red sailboat.

It's where they lived the last six months.

"It was our everything, it was our home; it has all of our belongings. It's our whole life right here," Oliver said.

When Hurricane Dorian came near the Northeast Florida coast, they took shelter in a hotel with family, but their sailboat got loose during the storm.

Neighbors ran over and tied it down under the Intracoastal Bridge on Beach Boulevard, but Wednesday night, the boat was hitting into the shore, so the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office tried to secure it once again.

When Action News Jax arrived Thursday morning, we found the boat partially submerged.

"We re-did everything in the boat, new floors, new TVs, new countertops," Allan said.

The couple said they don't have insurance and they're not sure what to do next.

"We don't even know where the holes are, how many holes there are, what's going to happen, how we're going to get it out of the water. We just got to play it by ear, see who can help us with what," Oliver said.

Oliver told Action News Jax her brother's boat also got loose in the storm and it's stuck on the rocks near the couple's red sailboat.

Allen started a Go Fund Me campaign in an effort to raise money to salvage the boat from the Intracoastal Waterway and find a place for the couple to stay.

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