PORT ORANGE, Fla. – Residents of Colony in the Wood mobile home community spent Friday using kayaks and wading through flood water to see how badly Hurricane Milton damaged their homes.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it again. It happened to us again,” Sandy Bennett said.
Bennett has lived here for more than 30 years.
She said she evacuated to a friend’s home to ride out the storm because her community was flooded by Hurricane Ian two years ago.
She arrived to find the driveway under water and her neighbors jumping into the water to help assess the impact.
“I’m just concerned because I live clear on the corner up there, and the canal is on the opposite side of my street. I’m just wondering if the trees took the roof off my home -- it’s just unreal.”
She said she had to be brought out by an airboat after Ian hit.
Port Orange city inspectors spent the last two days painstakingly searching the city street-by-street to look for more damage or flooding.
On one street, a tree fell on a mobile home.
The trunk, which measured approximately 3 feet in diameter, was toppled during the high winds that hit Volusia County early Thursday.
Inside the home, a 54-year-old woman had been sheltering from the storm.
Bennett said she was hoping her home was not flooded, but if it was – she was still thankful.
“Any inside things or material, that’s just what it is. Our lives aren’t replaceable. I’m grateful,” she said.
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