LOXAHATCHEE GROVES, Fla. — As communities in Southwest Florida scramble to piece together what's left of their homes, stores across South Florida are running out of the necessities.
“We are grabbing water and supplies for our home, because we don’t know what we’re going back to,” said Jessica Somerfield.
Nearly three hours away from home, Cape Coral residents Somerfield and Courtney McKelbey stopped at Tractor Supply near Wellington to get what they could before they go back to what is left of their home.
“We’re going home to damage. Everything’s going to be damaged," Somerfield said.
They stopped near Wellington to get gas cans, but Tractor Supply had already run out.
“We were looking for gas cans but they’re out over here too," Somerfield said.
Despite that the store is hours away from the area devastated by Hurricane Ian, employees at the Tractor Supply along Southern Boulevard said they were out of generators, tarps, gasoline cans, and other fuel transfer tools.
However, Somerfield said they grabbed what they could.
“We have water, we have shop-vacs, we have our cats, our food supply and that’s really all we have,” she said.
Somerfield and McKelbey piled back into their car, with four cats and one other person, to get the supplies they have to their families.
“We accepted when it was hitting that we were going back to nothing,” McKelbey said. “So, anything we go back to is just a blessing.”
They plan to return home to assess the damage, grab whatever they can salvage and make arrangements to stay somewhere else.
“Honestly, we can’t stay there, it’s not good for us or our cats,” said Somerfield . “We have no place for them and they’re already stressed.”
