ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — Many of you are working to get your lives back together after Hurricane Milton, as the storm and tornadoes destroyed many neighborhoods and homes.
WPTV's Joel Lopez caught up with Bill Whitehead, who lost his home on Rock Road, a place he's lived for 30 years.
He said he's living at his son's house, as the family home will need to be rebuilt.
Whitehead plans to look for an apartment, but this comes at a time when counties have a shortage of housing options.
"We already had a low number of available housing, and this just got less," said state Rep. Toby Overdorf. "My heart aches for them as far as the devastation. We've seen tornadoes before but nothing like this tornadic activity."
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Overdorf estimates the damages to be in the hundreds of millions in St. Lucie County.
"Do you feel like the state needs do be doing anything more to help our area?" asked Lopez.
"Well, the state is doing a tremendous amount," said Overdorf. "The Florida Department of Emergency Management has actually gone above and beyond, they went out and secured their own trailers ahead of time and made sure that we had that option."
He says the state has requested four programs:
- Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA): Provides direct hotel lodging to displaced survivors for up to 6 months.
- Clean & Sanitize Assistance: Provides a one-time payment of $300 to homeowners and renters with habitable homes.
- Non-Congregate Sheltering (NCS): Provides disaster survivors with hotel rooms or travel trailers for up to 6 months.
- Direct Temporary Housing: Provides eligible disaster survivors placement in a travel trailer, mobile home or apartment for up to 18 months.
"In that time frame, we're hoping people can get back on their feet in that point in time and get back either into their homes, get reconstructed or something along those lines," said Overdorf.
Clean & Sanitize Assistance has been made available, but the three remaining programs are still pending with FEMA.
Overdorf suggests people impacted apply for resources with FEMA and hopeflorida.com. You can also call 833-438-4673.
WPTV asked county officials what the damage totals look like in St. Lucie County and they said they're still working to get those numbers together.
