MARTIN COUNTY, Fla. — In the shell of a home where Diana Dotson used to live in Martin County, nothing is left but the house's walls.
"This was my bedroom area," Dotson tells WPTV reporter Kate Hussey, gesturing around the crumbling walls. "Yeah, that right back there. This is where I was living before (Hurricane) Milton."
It's the home she's lived in for 47 years. She first moved in when she was pregnant with her now-grown daughter. It's all that her, her children and her grandchildren know to call home.
"I never even imagined that it would be like this," Dotson said as she examined the cracked flooring and mangled furniture. "It's not good, but it looks better than it did that day."
Weather News
'I LOST SO MUCH': Victims cling to faith after tornadoes leave devastation
It's hard to imagine her home looking any worse. The roof is gone, trees are poking through her shattered windows and much of the left side of her house no longer exists.
Yet if you ask her how she feels, she'll tell you she's thankful.
"Because if it wasn't for God, I would have been gone. I do believe in God. I believe in miracles. I believe it because I've lived it," Dotson said confidently.
Dotson lives in New Monrovia Park of Port Salerno.
She was in her home on Oct. 9, the day Hurricane Milton spawned an unprecedented number of tornadoes across the state of Florida.
"Gosh," Dotson said with a sigh. "Oct. 9 was devastating to me. I was sitting in my den. I was so tired, for some reason."
Dotson said she planned to take a nap in her bedroom, even though it's something she normally never does.
"I never did make it to lay down, and thank God I didn't because if I had I know I wouldn't be here," Dotson said. "So I was peddling around, and I heard a noise. About 20 minutes or so later, my son was in there, lying down to sleep. I heard that noise, and I said to myself, 'What is that?'"
Dotson recalled getting a phone call about a tornado hitting parts of Port Salerno: the first of three to hit the Stuart area in a matter of hours.
The first two were EF1 tornadoes and caused minor damage across the area.
The last was an EF2 with 120 mph winds. It hit the Mariner Sands community near Hobe Sound then churned toward New Monrovia Park — straight toward Dotson's home.
"When that thing hit, when that devil hit, I didn't know which way to go. I didn't know what to do," Dotson told WPTV. "I said, 'What is that noise?' And all of a sudden, something clicked to me, 'Oh!' and I couldn't get out of the chair fast enough, so I just pushed my little table over, and I went running."
Dotson said she started calling for her son, but he didn't answer her — a terrifying moment as she rushed to his bedroom door.
"I said, 'Oh my God.' I got to the door. I hit the door. He didn't answer me. I said, 'Oh my goodness.' I pushed the door open, and I said, 'Boy, you better get up from there,'" Dotson recalled.
Dotson remembers him jumping up and the two of them running out of his bedroom the exact second the tornado hit.
"Shoooo!" Dotson said whirling her arms in the air, imitating the tornado. "We hit the floor. It was like a whirl, it was loud and noisy. Everything just went to going. It seemed like everything was going on in the house, so we hit the floor. And a few minutes later, we didn't hear anything."
Dotson said they got up off the floor and felt a draft. She looked around and realized half her house was gone.
"I looked and I said, 'Oh my gosh,' trees were inside my dining room," Dotson remembers. "I was stunned. All this trash and limbs and stuff just came through. I was amazed. I was locked down. What in the world is going on? It was devastating."
The powerful storm also picked up vehicles.
"The car was in the middle of the road, my car is over against the fence over there, in somebody else's area, and [my son's] truck was in the yard of the yellow house, green house over there," Dotson said pointing to a house several yards down from her own.
She also realized the tornado had thrown a trailer into the bedroom she would have been napping in: crushing the room completely.
Had she been sleeping in it, she would have likely been crushed, too.
"I cried for like, four whole days, you know. And you know that because when you interviewed me, I was crying," Dotson said referring to her interview with Hussey a few days after the storm.
"Right now, tears are trying to come, and I'm trying to fight them back, but I am grateful. I am blessed. I am blessed. I really am blessed," Dotson said choking back her tears.
Dotson called her daughter, who immediately came to get her. That's where she's been living since the storm. And like so many others, Dotson didn't have insurance.
"I used to have insurance, but times got kind of hard," Dotson said through tears. "I had nowhere to go, other than my daughter. I just pray that I can get my house back in order and try and enjoy the rest ... my life with my children, my families."
Still, Dotson stays resilient, thankful and hopeful.
"I have such a big community of friends all around me, you know. And I know I'm not the only one. I'm just so thankful for the organizations that we do have in Martin County, because they have turned out, they have been helpful, and they're still working. They still trying to help us, you know?" Dotson says, again holding back tears.
"I still think about it, but I know it's gonna get better. It's gonna get better," she assures herself.
However, Dotson knows this weather event has forever changed the way she looks at hurricanes.
"I never thought that it would happen here," she says of the unprecedented number of tornadoes Hurricane Milton spawned. "I never thought it would be here. I mean, not in like you say, in Florida. I never heard of it. I heard storms and stuff like that, but tornadoes, I never heard of that. But I tell you what, if they say a storm is coming, I want to go. I don't want to be here."
"What does moving forward look like for you?" Hussey asked.
"I'm hoping and praying that we don't have to ever go through anything like this again, but it's ... climate change, you know, things that's happening nowadays. We don't know. I don't know. I don't even think I can survive another tornado. And I'm sure I speak for a lot of people around here because this was very devastating," Dotson said as tears starting to form again. "I think about what I went through and still here alive to be able to talk about it, and it still hurts."
"Do you feel like you and this community of new Monrovia can ever be whole again?" Hussey asked.
"Not any time soon. I mean, it's not, it's not the same," Dotson responds thoughtfully. "I mean, we will be a unit as a family of friends and neighbors and stuff like that. But I can't say it's gonna be the same, because you got this in the back of your mind, you know. And everybody has lost so much. And you look at other people, how they lost so much."
Despite her loss, she thinks about what her neighbors are enduring as well.
"We lost a lot, but we're still here, and I feel for the ones that did lose their families or friends or neighbors," Dotson added.
Dotson's family has launched a GoFundMe page to help her recover. Click here if you'd like to help.
