FORT PIERCE, Fla. — On a dirt-filled lot she once called home, Erin Ross looks around her, basking in the "What if" and the "What could have been."
"It was about to be finished," Ross says of her once vibrant home. “If I was probably right about here, you know, I'd be in my kitchen and getting dinner and making food for my family with a little one running around looking outside."
Now, as Ross steps back to the reality of "What is," she's grounded again by the fear of what will be.
"I just don’t have it now," Ross says of the home she poured her life savings into. "We are now four months out, that’s four months now that we have been stalled in time."
It's now been five months since Hurricane Milton unleashed an unprecedented number of tornadoes across our area, significantly impacting hundreds of people, Erin Ross and her husband, Alfred Ross, among them.
The Ross family was directly hit by an EF-3 tornado in Fort Pierce during October 2024's tornado outbreak, significantly damaging their home and sparking a battle between them and their insurance company, the state-run Citizens Insurance program.
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With nowhere else to turn, the Ross family came to WPTV for assistance, and finally, there is light at the end of this long and arduous tunnel.
WPTV first spoke with the Ross couple in November after the tornado displaced them from their home. They had received an original payout from Citizens of $70,000 to fix the roof damage, but then St. Lucie County red-tagged their building as unlivable, and a private adjuster determined the house had completely shifted off its foundation.
They submitted that documentation to Citizens but to no avail.
“I had that letter from the county showing the house was in danger of collapse, and that we were in fact not allowed to live in it," Erin Ross said. "That document went to a higher tier manager, but I was told by him that the document was useless."
Recognizing the urgency of their situation, WPTV took action and contacted Citizens Insurance and Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. Soon after, the insurance company sent a statement admitting their previous assessment was inadequate and assigned a new adjuster to the case, they "wanted to do right by the family."
WATCH: How WPTV helped the Ross family get full insurance payout after their home was destroyed by an EF-3 tornado in October 2024
However, just three days later, Ross received another assessment that stated her home was "not substantially structurally damaged" and claimed the nearest tornado damage occurred two miles away.
“I lost my mind," Ross said. "I really just couldn’t believe it, it could not be more obvious the tornado was here."
Despite the setbacks, perseverance paid off. Erin kept pushing back against Citizens, and WPTV did too, reaching out again to the State.
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Soon after, her case got escalated to top-tier management, and eventually, she received the call she had been waiting for— the insurance company's decision to provide her with the full payout of her policy.
It won’t cover it all, but it’s enough to begin, and enough to shift the fear of "What will be" to the hope of "What will come."
“We’re hopeful of getting our own house again," Ross said. "We started having like the surveys done, figure out how we’re getting another house situated in here."
Although the family is still faced with a long road to recovery, potentially months or even years before they can secure a new home, they are thankful to have the financial support to initiate the rebuilding process.
As WPTV continues to follow the Ross family's journey, the question lingers— how many others are grappling with similar issues in the aftermath of the tornado?
It's a question we started looking into, and indeed, we found a much larger issue here at stake.
WPTV Investigates will delve deeper into the broader challenges many families face, shedding light on an issue that extends beyond just one home.
Stay tuned as WPTV uncovers more in upcoming stories.
