MILTON, Fla. — Some people in Milton, Florida are looking for a new place to stay after Hurricane Isaias ripped the roof from an apartment building.
Milton is 25 miles inland in the Pensacola area. It’s where Channel 2’s Ashlyn Webb has found some of the worst damage from the storm.
“We were playing ‘What Do You Meme,’ the card game. And then the roof just started flapping. It just peeled like a piece of paper,” Paul Morton said.
The roof is now gone from Morton and Alexis Rigdon’s apartment after wind gusts of more than 114 mph tore through the area. The two, along with Benji Cockrell, were sitting in their living room when they heard the windows rattling.
Then, panic.
“They just started yelling, ‘Roof! Roof!’” Rigdon said.
The three ran to their car for shelter, but the car started tilting in the wind. That’s when neighbors rushed out, urging them to take cover inside their home.
“They genuinely saved our life,” Cockrell said
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Gaarron Bethel lives an apartment over. He says when his roof tore off, he ran from his living room to the bathroom, where he huddled for the rest of the storm.
“I ain’t ever prayed until that time. And it wasn’t much, but God blessed me,” Bethel said.
The destruction didn’t stop at the apartment complex. Just next door, Milton High School took a direct hit. NewsDrone 2 flew over the school and saw the gymnasium roof torn apart and debris scattered across the grounds. The scoreboard blew all the way to the apartments.
Across the community, fallen trees and downed power lines left roads impassable. In East Milton, a convenience store was left in ruins. The roof ripped off, walls crumbled and food and merchandise were scattered across the floor.
For people who have weathered hurricanes before, they said they haven’t seen damage like this. People say it will take weeks to months to clean up and get Milton to what it was before the storm.
“Milton is not used to this,” said
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