Florida

‘It was getting really desperate': Milton evacuees face challenges as they return home

Residents say things are slowly getting back to a normal a week after Hurricane Milton hit

NBC Universal, Inc.

No water and no electricity. That was the reality for Christine Marr when she got back to St. Petersburg last Thursday, one day after Hurricane Milton battered Florida’s west coast.

No water and no electricity. That was the reality for Christine Marr when she got back to St. Petersburg last Thursday, one day after Hurricane Milton battered Florida’s west coast.

"It was intense," Marr said. "We didn’t know when the power would be restored, when the water would be turned on."

Her power finally came back on Tuesday night after six long days of being in the dark.

"There was no sewer system so nothing could be flushed," she said. "All the water had to be under a boil water notice. None of us knew when the end would be in sight."

Marr said her family got by using a small generator to power a fan and their refrigerator.

“It was getting really desperate as we got to day three, day four, day five,” she said.

"I feel like it’s slowly getting back to normal, there’s definitely something that feels a little off,” said Adrianna Albelo-Hermida.

Albelo-Hermida lives in Estero about 10 minutes from Fort Myers.

She said she’s still dealing with the aftershocks of the hurricane.

“Every single night we’ve been experiencing little surges,” Albelo-Hermida said. "Even sometimes during the day, we’ll just be at home or the university and the light will flicker for a little bit."

She went back home on Saturday after evacuating to her parents' house in Miami where NBC 6 interviewed her days before the hurricane hit.

Now that she’s back home, with no damage to her apartment, she says she’s thinking of others who weren’t so lucky.

“It’s hard knowing that there’s people who were not as fortunate as I was that no longer have their homes and have to restart in life because they lost everything,” she said. “My heart goes out to them.”

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