“It was fast, but very destructive”

Elizabeth Ruiz García has been living in the Orangewood community in the city of Fort Myers, Florida for several years. The 38-year-old Mexican is part of the hundreds of victims after the Hurricane Milton along the west coast of the state. Shortly before the category 3 cyclone made landfall near Siesta Key, a powerful tornado destroyed several houses in that neighborhood, including his.

“It was tremendous, we had never gone through something similar,” this Mexican woman told the Voice of America while remembering “the roar” and “the sparks” that he saw when he looked out the window of his house and saw how a tornado hit his area.

“It felt very strong, we had the feeling that at any moment the doors and windows were going to open,” said the mother of two young daughters.

The fence of Ruiz García’s house was seriously affected, as were some doors and windows, by the “fast, but very destructive” tornado that formed in this place.

However, some of their neighbors have not suffered the same fate. Many will have to leave their homes for several weeks after the storm blew off roofs and wiped out virtually everything inside the homes.

“My brother, who lives across the street, called me and alerted me that a tornado was passing through. “I was very scared because I thought everything was going to end,” she recalled, putting her hand on her heart and still scared by what she had experienced firsthand.

More than twenty tornadoes

According to the United States National Weather Service, at least 26 tornadoes were recorded in various parts of Florida as the hurricane advanced, unleashing all its fury through the center of the peninsula.

“Several tornado warnings had been issued, in addition to flooding, due to the instability of the area and we did have to take this very seriously,” said María Torres, meteorologist and communications officer at the National Hurricane Center (CNH), to the VOA.

The passage of the hurricane in numbers

So far, 16 deaths have been recorded related to the passage of Hurricane Milton, according to official sources from the Florida government. There are still more than 2 million homes without electricity, although Florida Power & Light (FPL) – the electric company that supplies the majority of residents in the state – has confirmed that work is being done to restore service as soon as possible, even without specify a clear schedule for these works.

Despite all the damage, residents who survived the hurricane breathe easier. “It could have been much worse, I thank God for giving us life,” said Olivier Charmant, another resident of the area who also felt the force of ‘Milton’ when the tornado destroyed several houses.

“My family was scared, it’s terrible. I was only thinking about protecting the four people in my family who were in my house that day,” said the migrant of Haitian origin.

Sammy Sanders, who grew up in this region, didn’t remember what it was like to experience a hurricane in Florida because he moved from the area ten years ago. The passage of the cyclone caught him by surprise.

“It’s an incredible experience, I’ve never been through anything like this before. I hadn’t been to Fort Myers for a long time, so it’s new for me,” he said, while admitting that “it was so sudden that I just didn’t know what to do.”

It’s the same feeling that Alicia Rodríguez had, a 23-year-old Puerto Rican who also lives with her family in this Fort Myers neighborhood. “In a matter of nothing we felt the winds, the gusts and then as if our ears were covered, it was very hard because we had three children at home and we were scared,” she said, saying that she had taken refuge in one of the interior rooms, frightened by the force. of the winds.

Reconstruction begins

After the storm, calm comes. But, for many of these residents, the reconstruction and damage repair phase now begins. The United States Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assures that it will take time to deploy all the aid in the area, although those affected can now contact the federal agency to request financial assistance and information about other programs offered by the US government for victims.

At the moment, the extent of the damage has not been accounted for, although Florida Governor Ron DeSantis admitted that the passage of the hurricane did not cause “the worst scenario.” That is to say, that of unprecedented devastation.

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