ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — At the entrance to the Spanish Lakes Country Club community in St. Lucie County, you'll find quaint and colorful homes: all seemingly untouched by Hurricane Milton.
Not a single shingle is amiss.
But if you keep driving into the community, the damage becomes visible — a roof gone here and some siding ripped off there.
Near the address of 52 Montoya, located at the very back of the community, there's nothing left to see. The only thing remaining is an empty plot of dirt that is scarred by excavators and littered with a few personal belongings.
It's all that's left of Bill Cutlip's life.
"There was a beautiful home here. He loved it here in Spanish Lakes," Sherry Ruiz, Cutlip's cousin, told WPTV reporter Kate Hussey. "But nothing's here now. This is the reality of the tragedy that happened."
Ruiz stood in the middle of that empty lot, still trying to understand why her cousin wasn't standing with her.
"My cousin Bill, who I referred to as Uncle Bill, my beloved friend," Ruiz said. "I'm standing in front of his home that's not here with us anymore. This house that is shredded up is the inside of my ... your gut, and your heart. It's just shredded."
Ruiz told WPTV that on Oct. 9 — the day Hurricane Milton spawned an unprecedented number of tornadoes across Florida — she had tried to get her Uncle Bill to come and stay with her at her home in Vero Beach.
"I have a concrete block home and I thought it would be safe," Ruiz said sadly. "Uncle Bill wouldn't come with me. I wanted him to come with me and I said, 'Uncle Bill,' I spoke to him on the phone. I said, 'Uncle Bill, you know, you'll be OK. You call me if anything happens and let me know how it's going,' and I said, 'If I don't hear from you, Uncle Bill…' and he says, 'Well, you know, I'll be with Jesus if I can't get back with you.'"
Later that day, Ruiz started hearing about tornadoes popping up across the area.
"Then I heard ... a tornado is ripping through Fort Pierce and it hit Spanish Lakes," Ruiz told WPTV.
That was an EF3 tornado, the second to hit the Spanish Lakes community in about a half hour.
It ripped through the 55 and older community with 155 mph winds, uprooting homes, trees and killing six people.
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Ruiz immediately scrambled to get in touch with her cousin.
"Because there was no communication after that, there was no phone service so I really thought maybe he lost his phone and ran to a friend's (home). That hope was still alive. The sheriff's department had told me a couple of friends said he may have left, so I thought, 'Uncle Bill, just grab a phone.' I was praying to myself, 'Just a grab a phone and call me and tell me you're OK.' And it never happened," Ruiz recalled.
Ruiz said she then saw a picture of Cutlip's home on Facebook, posted by one of his neighbors. She identified it by his red car and the trees that surround his mobile home lot. She also saw from the photo that his home was completely gone.
"And I knew then that he probably wouldn't make it out, or, if he did, I prayed that he was maybe at a shelter with a friend," Ruiz said. "I went to a couple of the shelters and there was no Bill Cutlip there. They took my name and information."
Ruiz remembers driving past Spanish Lakes later that day and seeing St. Lucie County deputies outside the community.
"I stopped the sheriff's department and I said, 'I'm looking for Bill Cutlip, have you heard anything?' And they said, 'We haven't heard anything yet. We'll call you."
Later that day she got the call a call from a deputy, confirming her worst fears.
"Uncle Bill was gone. They found him that morning," Ruiz recalled. "It was... you can't even describe it, really. I was praying and pleading with God. I had my moment with God. I'm like, 'Can you help me, please, you know, deal with this? Be strong enough to get through this.' And he has, the goodness of God, you know, he's been with me my whole life and he's gotten me through this."
When WPTV spoke with Ruiz, she looked around the empty plot of land where just weeks before she sat with Cutlip, drinking the coffee they so often bonded over.
"It's just horrific, you can't even imagine," Ruiz said shaking her head in disbelief. "We never dreamed in a million years that we would go through something like this."
Now, in the wake of it all, Ruiz tries to process a steady stream of questions and a constant surge of emotions.
"I was angry at myself that I didn't physically make Uncle Bill get in the car, which I probably could have did. I was angry that he didn't want to leave and come with me. I was angry with God, that I felt punished. And I felt we all were being punished," Ruiz said. "I was devastated, in shock, because I just couldn't believe it."
Still, she clings to her faith, believing there's hope and purpose through it all.
"There's a plan. And I am trusting God, I am on this side of God," Ruiz said. "There's always hope for tomorrow. There's going to be hope."
Ruiz said her cousin was a Vietnam War veteran who loved coffee, Greek food and loved to travel.
"He was a very funny guy, very smart," Ruiz tells us. "He was very giving. ... He was kind to people. He had a lot of friendly neighbors. They loved him too. It's very sad, I felt it was a very cruel thing, you know, this devastation, it seems cruel."
She thinks about the things that Cutlip loved.
"This was one of his flags," Ruiz says, pointing to a folded flag draped across excavator equipment. "He had a couple of flags. He was my best friend. We would talk about food, and what to cook and different coffee brands and how Winn-Dixie is doing today, just things like that."
"How does it feel to find these things?" Hussey asked.
"It hurts, you know, it hurts. They're materials and they bring back memories. And I have the memories, you know, the good ones," Ruiz replied.
Though it doesn't make sense to her, and probably never will, Ruiz clings to her faith the way she says her Uncle Bill would.
"I couldn't understand why I'm going through this. Was it me? I did something? Or somebody did something? It's that roller coaster. You're on top of the mountain then you're in the deep valleys," Ruiz said. "But God is still good. He's still great and that's my testimony and that's the hope Uncle Bill wanted us to have. "
