Sherry Laput is living in Moosup, but her heart is in Port Charlotte, Florida, which is dealing with the impacts from Ian, which struck Florida Wednesday as a powerful category 4 hurricane before it was downgraded to a tropical storm Thursday morning.
"I grew up there. I lived there. My kids were born there. It’s just basically devastated," Laput said.
Her son is in Deep Creek, Florida and said the water is up to the bumper of the cars.
“He said that the apartment building he’s in is standing but the houses across the street from it are flattened and he said that it’s just demolished, He said I wouldn’t even recognize it," Laput said.
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Laput said her adult son, other family members and friends decided to stay Florida and have faced hurricanes over the years but, from what she’s heard, this has been one of the worse to rock central Florida in quite some time.
More on Ian and Impact of the Storm
She shared one conversation she had with someone in Florida last night.
"I was talking to her a little bit on Snapchat last night and she said that the hurricane blew her French doors open, they had to stick a couch in front of the French doors and their roof was leaking and everything. It’s just really, really, really bad."
Laput said most of her relatives are without power and it’s hard to stay in contact because the cell service continues to go in and out, but she is hoping for everyone facing the storm.
"I hope that you know they can get their lives back together really quickly. They’re pretty much devastated right now,’ she said. “You know you work really hard for everything you get and just a split second it’s gone."
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