Since moving to Gainesville eight years ago, Edgar Montealegre has had three large trees trimmed on different sides of the family’s mobile home.
But as Hurricane Helene’s winds howled through the trees, Edgar worried about swaying trees just across the property line. He went outside with a flashlight, the family’s only one, and watched the trees moving.
Inside, he told his wife, Zoraida, and daughter, Lorena, to move more toward the other side of the trailer.
“Five minutes later: boom,” Edgar recalled. “The sound was like an explosion.”
On the vacant parcel next door, a tree Edgar hadn’t worried about fell and slammed onto the home. It smashed into the roof of the Montealegre’s bedroom and bathroom, leaving half the trailer unusable and the whole home unlivable.
“All the glasses started throwing around and like all the wind came into the house,” Lorena said. “It was a very loud noise.”
In the weeks since, Edgar and Lorena have stayed in an RV behind the home while Zoraida stays with their other daughter in Gainesville. The wind and rain coming into the trailer left ruined clothes and other belongings.
Without insurance and hoping to ease into retirement, the storm has left the Monteagle’s searching for options.
Hurricane Helene hit Alachua County hardest this season. Residents and businesses reported 1,149 incidents of damage to Alachua County from Helene, compared to 14 reports from Hurricane Milton and 260 reports from Hurricane Debby.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) listed Alachua County as part of the federal disaster declaration for all three hurricanes. Within two weeks after Helene, the agency had spent more than $212 million in recovery efforts, but the storm is projected to cost more than $100 billion in damage when everything settles.
The Montealegre’s received $13,500 from the agency, but that’s not enough to repair the damage.
Nationally, FEMA remains at the center of talks concerning government preparedness.
Locally, Monteagle’s said they’re getting estimates from contractors on repairs, but repairs on a 1970s trailer might cost more than buying a new home.
With the estimates, the family can appeal the FEMA assistance amount. Edgar said contractors are busy and not many seem interested in a mobile home renovation.
Edgar lived in Lakeland before the economic crash in 2008 caused him to lose the house there. He returned to Colombia before immigrating back to the States with Zoraida.
The goal with their house in Gainesville was to be close to family and enjoy each other. Zoraida said after 40 years of working in Colombia and the United States, the couple felt like they’d hit a point of slowing down on work.
Now, Zoraida worries Edgar will have to return to long work weeks to finance their home.
Edgar said he underestimated the impact of the storm. Though Alachua County issued an evacuation order for mobile homes and opened shelters, he said the family didn’t consider evacuating. He said he had a paranoid feeling leading up to the storm, and for the next storm, he said they’ll find shelter—whether at a hotel or up in Atlanta.
Despite the losses, the family has also felt love from the community, Edgar said.
A crew from Anthem Church came after the storm and removed the tree—a special moment for Edgar—and a GoFundMe page for the family has raised nearly $6,000 to help.
“Now, the most important for me is to be close to them and to support them in different ways, especially emotional,” Edgar said. “I said that day or the day after, ‘Thank God we are alive.’”
No insurance doesn’t sound like it was a wise decision.