Charlotte County residents help clean neighbor’s home after Milton

Reporter: Amy Galo
Published: Updated:

The Charlotte Harbor community experienced storm surge and flooding during Helene, and two weeks later, Hurricane Milton delivered a second blow.

WINK News caught up with Port Charlotte residents Andy Meinhart and Jada Webb as they worked to clean up a Charlotte Harbor resident’s home.

“All the doors are ruined,” said Meinhart. “The stove is gone. The range, it’s not even in here anymore. There’s no refrigerator. All the cabinets are ruined. The water heater was laying over.”

Meinhart and Webb tossed what couldn’t be saved from the home into one pile and formed a second pile for those memories that might still have hope.

But those memories, are not their’s.

The home Meinhart and Webb were working to clean doesn’t belong to either of them. It belongs to a man named Sean.

Sean spoke with WINK News Reporter Claire Galt in the hours after Milton. He showed her what the floodwaters did to his home.

While Helene brought in six inches of water, Milton brought at least another foot.

Webb saw that interview live on WINK, and recognized Sean from Pioneers Pizza.

“I’ve been going there for three years. He works hard. I see him back there making pizza. He waves and says hi.”

Webb said that helping him out was a no-brainer.

“I thought about it, and I’m like, I have to get a few people together. We have to do this.”

It’s what Webb calls good karma and they’re feeling it already.

“We went to Pioneers Express Port Charlotte and saw him last night,” said Webb. “He was in tears, grateful. Thanked us numerous times, and he even bought us a pizza. So we were happy. We were happy with that.”

There’s still a lot of structural work to be done on Sean’s home. The walls will likely need to be gutted. Meinhart and Webb said that their goal is to clean Sean’s home quickly so he can at least have it as a shelter for now.

“You got empathy for people, and at some point, you gotta turn empathy into action,” said Meinhart.


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