FORT PIERCE, Fla. — From the minute WPTV met Rosie Quaranta, we knew she was someone special.
From her pink flamingo visor to the butterflies on her t-shirt and a sparkle in her eye, the 82-year-old radiates spunk and personality. She tells us she goes by Rosie Q.
"I was told I had an aura," Quaranta tells WPTV reporter Kate Hussey with a grin. "So I don't know."
Little did we know that when we met her, the very clothes that stood out to us were the only clothes she has left after the devastating Oct. 9 tornadoes.
"I walked out of here with the clothes on my back, and 20 minutes later I got a call that said my house was gone," Quaranta said.
Quaranta lived in the Spanish Lakes Country Club located north of Fort Pierce.
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The 55 and older community was hit by an EF3 tornado with 155 mph winds, which ripped right through Quaranta's home.
That was the second of two tornadoes that hit Quaranta and her neighborhood.
"So my front door was here," Quaranta said while gesturing to a corner of her now empty plot of land. "And I was standing approximately 6-foot away, and all of a sudden, the front windows were shaking like crazy, like they were jousting. And I looked and I said, 'Oh, I better get back.' So I backed into the kitchen, and then I thought, I don't want to stay in another hurricane by myself."
That was the first tornado, an EF1 with 95 mph winds that tore through parts of Fort Pierce, including the Treasure Coast International Airport.
"I didn't know it was a tornado," Quaranta told WPTV emphatically. "I said, 'I'm not staying here.'"
The fear she felt from that first twister may have saved her life.
"I called my friend, and I said, 'Come get me.' Twenty minutes later I got a call that said my house was gone. Yeah, that's what I said, 'Gone, how could it be gone? The hurricane is not even here yet. It's coming at two o'clock in the morning.' This was like 6:30 at night," Quaranta tells us. "He just said, 'Rosie, it's gone.' And I say, 'What do you mean gone? It can't be it's gone?' And that's all he kept saying. So I said, 'OK, I'll check it out.' Sure enough, my house is gone."
Sure enough, her home was gone.
Quaranta walked WPTV around the now-empty plot of land that housed her mobile home. It's covered with debris: from a mangled microwave to an upside-down washing machine buried among what's left of the rubble.
"You walk around and you see things," Quaranta said thoughtfully. "I'm seeing some fishing line. My husband was a fisherman."
Then she came across her shoes, shouting "my shoes!" and stopped dead in her tracks.
Quaranta pointed to a pair of glittering teal slippers, half-covered in dirt.
"I kind of like glitz and glam. My glitzy blue shoes," Quaranta recalled. "I wore them on the airplane one time and the girls were all like, "look, look, look!"
All of this come as reality sets in after the tragedy.
"It's all gone. You can't save nothing, there's nothing here," Quaranta said sadly. "I had a pond over there. You can't even tell. ... There's nothing here. They would show me something and ask if I want it and I would say, 'No, it's over. It's gone. Why bother.'"
Quaranta lost everything. The home she and her husband got married in is goine. Her 82-years-worth of memories. Even the little things most of us don't place value in but use every single day.
"You can go back in your house and get your things. You can have your pictures. You can have…" Quaranta trails off, fighting back tears. "I don't even have my coffee pot."
Adding to the mountain of things she now has to deal with is unforgettable trauma from losing two of her neighbors in the monstrous twister.
"The neighbor next door, they found him. He had passed. He was on the ground," said Quaranta.
She's referring to Roger Ammon, who was killed when the tornado ripped through the community. His wife, Gail, survived and was taken to the hospital, according to family, who told Hussey she's now recovering with loved ones in New York.
"[Gail] was on the ground. She wound up having a broken back," Quaranta said. "And then the next neighbor was OK, but he couldn't find his girlfriend."
That girlfriend was 66-year-old Debra Kennedy, who was also killed in the tornado. Hussey spoke to her daughter, Brandi Smith, who described her as the best mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
"You cry because you miss them. You cry because they're not there. But they're in your heart, and you got to know them, so you're lucky," Quaranta said with her voice breaking. "They say it's a good thing I'm alive. I don't know why."
Yet Quaranta, with nothing but the clothes on her back, stays incredibly positive.
She told WPTV that many of her friends, neighbors and family have rallied around her, offering clothes, places to stay and a warm meal.
"I couldn't believe all the people that wanted to help me," Quaranta said choking back emotion. "I mean, I'm just, I'm nobody, nobody special."
WPTV disagrees with that statement, and neighbor Paula Richards does too.
She knows Quaranta is indeed someone special. Though she only met Quaranta a few days before Hurricane Milton spawned unprecedented tornadoes across Florida, she immediately took Quaranta in until she can fully move into a new home.
Until then, Quaranta waits and hopes for help from FEMA.
"When, you just wonder when, and if you're going to get help," Quaranta said.
If you'd like to help Quaranta recover, you can contact WPTV reporter Kate Hussey at Kate.Hussey@WPTV.com.
