WATCH BELOW - The Day the Sky Turned: One Year Later
Sitting at a rental property with her husband, Charley Dahlonega recounts the storm that will haunt her memory forever.
On Oct. 9, 2024, an EF2 tornado ripped through her Okeechobee property during Hurricane Milton, burying her and her husband, John Alberigi III, alive in the rubble.
"I was literally buried up to my neck with one arm out, and I'm trying to push the dryer off of me," Dahlonega said while describing the moments after the tornado struck. "The sheriff told me not to push the dryer because I was surrounded by electrical wire and cow fence, so I was sort of cooked."
That tornado was one of 46 to touch down across Florida.
Dahlonega said the trailer they lived in was lifted several yards into the air and either "imploded or exploded," depending on the witness.
She was found near a roadside fence beneath a dryer; the blow fractured her skull. Her husband was buried nearby, she said, his face and ribs broken. He spent months in rehabilitation.
"John was in rehab until mid-December," she said. "By then, FEMA had us, had me in a hotel, and I didn't have transportation to do much of anything."
Now, a year after the disaster, the couple is rebuilding their lives while Dahlonega cares for her husband, who has dementia.
"I have memories of this entire year, and [I'm] hoping someday they'll go away, but they're still quite fresh in my memory. The trauma," Dahlonega said.
The couple have moved twice since the tornado, living in a combination of hotels and motels after their home was destroyed and nearly everything they owned was lost.
Dahlonega said she and John are now living in a rental property while a house is being built for them in Lake Placid, Florida, and she hoped to move before the anniversary of the storm.
"We were hoping to be gone four months ago," she said. "But you know, if you've ever had a home built, you can imagine what it is we're going through, so we're just waiting to get moved.”
The trauma of the tornado has lingered. Dahlonega said she now struggles with anxiety when bad weather approaches and has trouble sleeping.
"I got to where if it's going to rain, I can't drive, I can't. I just panic. And I'm still trying to work through that aspect," said Dahlonega.
Caring for her husband has only added to the challenges of recovery. Without a car or a home to return to, Dahlonega and her husband were separated for months — he often wondered why she wasn't coming to pick him up from the rehab facility.
"It was devastating," said Dahlonega. "I had the skull fracture, and the only thing I could think is I have to get up and find a place to live. We had nothing. The home was destroyed. Everything we owned was destroyed. So, I mean, I made every effort to get to him every day and promise him the next day, the next day."
Dahlonega said on Dec. 15, three months after the tornado, her husband's brother picked him up from rehab and brought him to the hotel they were staying at.
"That was on my birthday, Dec.15. He came home. What was home at the time," said Dahlonega, getting emotional. "It's...it's better. I mean, just knowing he's here, it's a peace of mind. I don't worry so much. He's my honey bear. We're going to make it. We're going to be fine."
Navigating FEMA and other agencies was difficult for Dahlonega, too.
"FEMA moved us into a little motel, nice little motel," said Dahlonega. "Stayed there for two months, and then after that, FEMA gave us a check for a month's rent, basically told us hit the road. So, I hit the road with all that FEMA had given us."
She also pointed to other gaps in the recovery system: the difficulty replacing identification and legal documents lost in the storm, the hardship of tracking federal assistance, and the theft and pilfering of property left unattended after the storm.
Dahlonega said she has had to reimburse a new property owner for a stolen well pump and has seen sheds and metal disappear from the site.
"I will only have bad memories of Okeechobee, because I don't feel the community rallied together to help with what happened here," said Dahlonega.
Still, she emphasized resilience. After months without reliable transportation, she recently bought a vehicle and has begun visiting the Lake Placid property where the new house is being completed.
"I finally got a vehicle, and I'm able to do a little more," she said. "We're going to be fine. It's like, come hell or high water — been through both."
Her message to others, she said, is to act and persevere.
"I'm hoping people will know that they have — you may not know it, but you've got the strength in you to do the same thing I've done," she said. "We all have the strength in us to survive."
Yet even as she describes her hope, resilience and perseverance, Dahlonega can't help but feel that gnawing fear in the back of her head: the fear that something else is coming.
"I really thought I had a handle on it, you know? I could take care of us. We were doing it. Everything's good. And then all of a sudden, everything was nothing, like literally nothing," said Dahlonega. "So tomorrow has to be better, right? It has to be better. That's all. Of course, we could get another tornado tomorrow. You know that light at the end of the tunnel? That would be the freight train; another storm before we can get out of here."
As Dahlonega returns to the labor that keeps her going: preparing for the future, tending a garden she hopes to replant in Lake Placid and caring for John, she said she hopes that by telling her story, others in similar situations might find help or inspiration — and that the system will someday do a better job supporting elderly caregivers caught in the wake of disaster.
