WELLINGTON, Fla. — After an EF3 tornado tore through Wellington earlier this month, WPTV showed you the Buera family searching their car for passports and birth certificates.
Now, we're learning that they not only lost their car but also their home.
WPTV Wellington reporter Michael Hoffman learned how the community is now stepping up to help.
Shattered windows and a damaged roof are reminders to the Buera family of how close they were to death after the terrible twister impacted their lives.
"You realize ... you don't really have much left because ... everything got destroyed, your whole life," Carolina Buera, 17, said. "I just doesn't feel real ... honestly, feels like a fantasy, a dream, a nightmare even, horrible."
She walked us through what was once her family's home located next to what once were stables.
"This is a place where they always kept horses," Buera recounted. "Like, you can actually see kind of the structure of where it was located."
Carolina and her family were inside their home as the EF3 tornado roared through Palm Beach County. When the roof caved in, Carolina's mother, Mariela, threw herself over her family to protect them. The twister destroyed their home and their car, which is her mother's source of income as a food delivery worker.
"It ... did a nose dive into the canal," Carolina said. "Everything got wet or destroyed, so we couldn't find my passport. We couldn't find ... important documents I really need, like ... a birth certificate, my brother's maybe."
All of the damage now has the family of three and their pets living in a one-bedroom apartment
"There's not really much space," Carolina said. "But we at least have a roof over our heads that we're very grateful for."
However, the family is still searching for a car.
"If you have a car to donate or a car, cheap and economical, also with the [idea] of an apartment," Mariela said through a translator.
Nonprofits, facing their own struggles of dwindling supplies with many needing help after the storms, are stepping in to lend assistance.
"We want to make sure that when someone loses everything except for their life," CEO and founder of Eat Better Live Better Debra Tendrich said, "we are there to support them and help them rebuild."
Tendrich outlined what she and her organization are doing to help the family.
"One thing that we're doing is working with Wheels From the Heart to actually help this family get a new car so they can get to work," Tendrich said, "so they can get to school and restart and find some normalcy again."
As Carolina and her family comb through what’s left of their home, it still doesn't feel real.
"Being in it and hearing everything happening and not knowing if you're gonna survive or not, and especially with your family, it's a nightmare," Carolina said. "It doesn't feel real in your mind."
Click here if you want to help the family regarding vehicle donations.
Click here to donate to the family's GoFundMe.
