Family who lost everything to Hurricane Ian in Florida starting over in Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Hurricane Ian has now made a second landfall in the Carolinas, having left a train of destruction behind in Florida.
CBS 2's Marissa Perlman talked Friday with one Florida family who lost everything. Chicago will be that family's new home.
Amanda Mejia raised her three kids in Chicago. But after her husband died from cancer, they moved to Florida for a fresh start.
But Ian wiped out their small town of Iona in Lee County, Florida, and they told us they have nothing to return to now.
When CBS 2 met Mejia, she was sitting on a couch with her daughter, Lourdes, as Lourdes played guitar and sang. Mejia said her daughter's voice brings a sense of calm during a period of such loss.
"We can roll with this. We can flow with this," Mejia said. "But I mean, it's all a shock."
As Hurricane Ian headed toward her small community in Iona – right between Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach – Mejia knew she and her three kids had to evacuate.
"And I was watching it and I was like, 'Nope, nope, I need to leave," she said.
They left with the clothes on their backs, and their cats, and drove toward friends and family in Chicago – where all three kids grew up. On the way, the alerts started coming.
Mejia pulled up a map of Iona on her phone, and drew her finger across to delineate a huge chunk of land that has been washed away.
She learned everything was gone.
"There's nothing," Mejia said.
A Ring camera photo was the last image Mejia saw of her community. Everything was underwater.
But it was drone video of their beloved beach posted on social media that showed Mejia their world would be upside down.
"I know that our house, it if is filled with the contents of the beach that we live two miles away from, is going to be uninhabitable," Mejia said, "and it will be impossible to start over."
So now the family will start over in Chicago, where they have support.
"Things can be replaced," Mejia said. "We will get through this."
And now in Chicago - as the family sat listening as Lourdes sang and played George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on her guitar - her mother said wherever the family is, the music will keep playing.
FEMA can't access the area in Iona. It is on a 48-hour lockdown, and no one is allowed in or out.
The Mejias' Chicago family has started a fundraiser and is asking for clothing donations. You can find it at this link.
