CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — Storm cleanup starts locally and ends locally. If you depend on the state or the feds, you'll be waiting for a long time. It is the volunteers with boots on the ground hours after the storm that make all the difference, and the Good Samaritans who saved lives during the storm.
Pam Pettingill was rescued from her home as the surge swept in.
For Hurricane Helene, parts of Punta Gorda received 6 to 8 feet of surge from the Peace River. Pettingill's neighbors carried her to their two-story home, saving her life.
"Do you think you would have made it with the storm surge with your dog?" Paluska asked.
"I had to have help getting over there. I would be in my attic if it weren't for them," Pettingill said.
ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska spent the day with the non-profit SendMeMissions. We watched first-hand how the dedicated-based non-profit went to work. We are told they deployed within 24 hours, the fastest for any storm. Their timing helped homeowner Pettingill avoid catastrophic mold from taking over her flooded home.
"It would have cost me a lot of money," Pettingill said. "If it weren't for Send MeMissions, I wouldn't. I would not have a home because it would have been full of mold, and I would not have been able ever to afford to take care of that."
Pettingill told ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska she is still trying to recover from Hurricane Ian, which slammed into Southwest Florida as a category four storm in 2022.
For more than a decade, the non-profit SendMeMissions has responded to hurricanes and tropical storms impacting Florida. Based in Wauchula, Hardee County, the team of volunteers travels to areas that might be forgotten in the news coverage.
Paluska has profiled their work for several storms over the years. Samuels said she has no plans on stopping.
"Is there any way you could say it's just too much?" Paluska asked.
"No," Samuels said. "Until the Lord calls me to a perfect home, he leaves us on this temporary home. We'll keep doing this work to love others, and I hope someone will do the same for me."
She continued, "You know, if it were my home, whether I had insurance or not, I would hope my community, friends, and family would rally around me. I would hope strangers, just strangers, would show up at my door and help and pass it along. We know what it feels like. And so you can't do this on your own. We want to love on others just like Jesus did when he was on this Earth."
The massive piles of debris littering communities across the Bay Area are not likely to end soon. We went to Town n Country, Baycrest, and Dana Shores to see how those areas are coming together.
