WATCH BELOW - The Day the Sky Turned: One Year Later
A year after an EF3 tornado ripped through the Spanish Lakes Country Club community, Brandi Smith said she's still learning how to live without her mom.
"It kind of brings it all back a little bit," she said while sitting in her home in New York. "But I feel better than I did when we first started talking."
Her mother, Debbie Kennedy, was one of six people killed on Oct. 9, 2024, when a powerful twister — one of 46 that formed ahead of Hurricane Milton — struck the Fort Pierce neighborhood with little warning.
"They got one tornado warning after another," Smith recalled. "And then before they knew it, another tornado touched down. It either hit my mom's house or right next to it — close enough to sweep the house up in it."
"Your mom is there your entire life, until she's not."
Smith said she knew something was wrong that night when her messages to her mom stopped delivering.
"She was preparing for a storm. Her phone would've been charged," she said. "When it didn't say 'delivered,' I knew there was a problem."
By the next afternoon, a detective called to tell her what she already feared — her mother's body had been found.
"I never lived a day before that without her," Smith said. "How do you process living without your mom?"
A mother and now a mother without hers
Over the past year, Smith said grief has come in waves.
"There've been days and weeks where I didn't even get out of bed," she said. "Then there are times when I tell myself my mom would want me to be happy. She'd want me living my life."
She said losing her mom changed her, along with the way that she parents her own daughter, Maddie.
"I don't feel like I actually became a mom until I lost mine," she said. "Because I couldn't call her anymore to ask what to do — I had to figure it out and be the mom."
Now, she finds comfort in the similarities between her daughter and her mother.
"She looks just like her," Smith smiled. "My mom always said Maddie was here to do something special — that she was here to save me. And I really believe that now."
Pushing for change
In the months after the tornado, Smith became a quiet force for change. She fought for stronger regulations for manufactured homes and backed legislation aimed at preventing similar tragedies.
"People are noticing," she said. "I know the bill [on manufactured housing] didn't pass, but maybe if they change it up, the next one can. Something good has to come out of six people dying like that."
Smith said her mom's death taught her the importance of taking storm warnings seriously.
"When we see those warnings, we think it's not going to happen — that they're overselling it," she said. "But they do that because if they don't, we won't take it seriously. Go. Leave. Don't take the chance. It can happen."
"She was absolutely amazing"
Smith said that Kennedy was the kind of person who made everyone feel at home.
"She was the mom all my friends hung out with. Everybody called her 'mom,'" she said. "She was special, she was funny, kind, and always ready with a cup of coffee. She spent the last two years of her life taking care of my dad after he had a stroke — she gave up everything to do that."
Kennedy is now buried next to Smith’s father in New York.
"It gives me peace knowing she's home," Smith said. "Me and my daughter go up there often. We leave little gifts. It just feels like I can talk to her easier there."
A message to others
For Smith, healing is still a work in progress.
"I think dealing with the grief will get easier, but I don't think it'll ever get easier knowing she’s not here," she said.
Her hope now is that her mother’s story reminds others to prepare — and to hold their loved ones close.
"If her death can even save one person, then it wasn’t in vain," she said. "That’s what she would've wanted."
