A Flagler County man lost thousands of rare books worth thousands of dollars because of Hurricane Matthew. He is advising people to never take any storm lightly.

Steve Bolter retired from law enforcement and moved to Flagler County with his wife about 12 years ago. Bolter's life after retirement is surrounded by shelves of books.

"I've got about 25,000 books here, or I had 25,000 books," Bolter said.

As a collector and seller, he never imagined Hurricane Matthew destruction would be written in his life story.

"Not expecting that we were going to happen to have 21 inches of water in this entire downstairs," Bolter said.

Bolter said he works out of his home six to eight hours a day and sells books at events across the country and online.

"When we walked in, it looked like looters had been in here. Books were all over in the aisles and book cases were collapsed," said Bolter.

Books worth thousands of dollars were saturated in ocean water from the storm, including some inscribed by famous people dating back from the 16th and 17th centuries.

They went from the shelves to the curb outside of his home.

"The Bibles sat in the water for four days and they swelled and then came out in one block with mildew and mold growing on them. I mean they looked like Chia pets," Bolter said.

Bolter said he lost two rows of books on every one of his 42 shelves, which totaled about 5,000 books. He added he had to remove about 800 books he was selling online because he no longer had them in stock.

"I lost one $10,000 book. You can't replace that. It brought me to tears and it still does when I talk about it  and it probably will for a long time. I've lost books that you can't replace them and I've had some of them for 15 to 20 years," Bolter said.

The couple also lost cars, spent about $30,000 to replace home appliances and make other repairs, plus at least 5,000 books. Bolter's advice is always prepare as much as you can, especially when it comes to things that can’t be replaced.

"Take all your valuables and just do that, because you never really know what the outcome is going to be," Bolter said.

Next time Bolter said he'd move the books to a remote location to make sure they're safe. He advises homeowners to get flood insurance with storm surge protection and put your valuables somewhere safe.