FORT PIERCE, Fla. — As cleanup continues across our area in Milton's aftermath, the families of those deadly tornadoes Wednesday are still trying to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones.
Tuesday, crews in Fort Pierce were busy restoring power, clearing fallen trees and rebuilding broken homes.
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Yet in the Spanish Lakes Community, still flattened by an EF3 tornado that took the lives of six people, Brandi Smith wonders how she can begin to rebuild when the biggest thing taken from her can't be replaced.
"You don't [rebuild], you just refocus your efforts to something different, you know?" said Smith. "There's really not anything you can rebuild because you can’t replace a loved one, especially somebody like my mom."
Smith's mother, Debbie Kennedy, was one of those six people St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson confirmed were killed in Wednesday's tornado.
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Smith said she knew something was very, very wrong the day it ripped through.
"I knew something was wrong when my messages weren’t being delivered all the way through," said Smith. "I started posting all over the local sites down there. Finally, a detective called me around 3 and told me they had identified my mom earlier in the morning."
In a matter of seconds, Smith said she lost her mother— a grandmother, great grandmother and friend; taken by a tornado she never saw coming.
"You can't blame anything or anybody, it was a terrible...nobody expected it, nobody knew it was coming, nobody made it go there," said Smith.
Smith said at the time, her mother was with her boyfriend at their Spanish Lakes home. When the tornado blew through, it took the house with it, sending her boyfriend to the ICU.
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For Smith, the storm isn't over yet. Her ability to grieve is now put on hold as she works to bring her mother back home to New York. It's a $12,000 task complicated by 1,200 miles of distance.
"Moving her from Florida to New York is not easy and it's not cheap to do, unfortunately," said Smith.
Although Smith can't build back what once was, and normalcy for her will never be the same, she too moves forward.
Unlike those cleaning up her homes, her road ahead won't be branch by branch nor brick by brick, but by one deep breath at a time.
"She lived for us kids, her grandkids and her great-grandkids" Smith said. "We just want to do right by her and get her home."
Smith and her family have launched a GoFundMe page to help pay for the cost of transporting her mother home. To donate, click here.
Deputies are still blocking off the Spanish Lakes Community to anyone not a resident or relative as they continue to sort through and cleanup rubble.
