Hours before the hurricane of the century reaches Swedish-American Shanida De Gracia’s home, she has said goodbye to her house.
– Nothing will be left of all that you have worked hard for.
She lives in Tampa, Florida – where the hurricane will hit first – and where everyone is being advised to evacuate.
– It feels serious, very serious. We are leaving now and I don’t expect anything to remain, says Shanida De Gracia.
Don’t know when she can return
Shanida De Gracia’s husband has installed plywood sheets on all the windows. She herself has packed the most important things in the car. Now she and her family have moved an hour north.
When she returns to her home, she does not know – nor in what condition it will be.
– We couldn’t take everything with us, just some clothes. Then we just have to see what happens and hope that at least the roof is still there, says Shanida De Gracia.
Bodies in the garden
Nine hours away, in the small mountain village of Black Mountain in North Carolina, Helene has already proven what a hurricane can do to a home.
Swedish Camilla Khilberg was with her daughter the night the hurricane moved in.
– The worst thing is now that you start finding bodies in the garden, they can appear anywhere. On TV it looks terrible, but to walk around and see it is unimaginable, she says.
Ambulances and police are still driving around here with sirens wailing, two weeks after the devastation.
Buried alive
In a stream below Camilla Khilberg’s home, dogs marked something the police thought was a fish.
– Then there was a hand that moved in the mud. This man has been there for seven days and survived, she says.
In a few days, the family is moving back home, now they live two hours away. Camilla Khilberg’s house survived – but the rest of the city is changed forever.
– Politically, the country is very divided, but when it comes to a crisis, it doesn’t matter what you think, you just want to help each other, she says.