Port Charlotte family finally receives trailer months after Hurricane Ian

Facing obstacles at every stop, a family is finally seeing progress.

Nearly eight months after Hurricane Ian, one Port Charlotte woman is just now moving into her temporary housing unit.

Pam Ridolfi and her husband finally got the OK to move into a Unite Florida trailer.

It’s been a tough journey for the couple as two weeks Ridolfi also lost her mother.

“It brought the ceiling down and the insulation down,” said Ridolfi.

She lost the ability to live in the place she loves but that won’t be her greatest loss.

“I was in shock, to be honest with you,” Ridolfi said.

Her mom, who lived in the home since 1972, never got the chance to move back in.

Months before Hurricane Ian made landfall, her mom broke her leg falling in the house and had to live in an assisted living facility.

“I know she’s here with us as much as she can be,” Ridolfi said.

Her death more than seven months after the storm was just another hurdle that Ridolfi and her husband had to overcome.

“We just couldn’t get a physical person to talk to. And so that was one of the biggest frustrations,” she said.

The hurricane made the home where her mother lived, which became her home, unlivable.

Ridolfi and her husband applied for temporary housing from FEMA and Unite Florida so they could stay on their property and finish repairs to their home faster.

And they say the rental assistance money they were given ran out fast so they had to burn into their savings.

“We don’t know if we’re going to have enough money right now to, you know, complete all the rooms,” Ridolfi said.

Finally, 230-plus days after the storm, a breakthrough came and they were cleared to move in.

“So this week, we’ll start moving out of the hotel and moving into the trailer and hopefully, you know, save some monies and put it back into the house,” Ridolfi said.

The two are focused on what they’ve gained from this experience, not lost.

But the bottom line, to them is that this took way too long.

“The lack of understanding, lack of getting an answer as to why, you know, why did it take so long,” she said.