ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — It’s been 22 months since Hurricane Ian forced over 70 people out of their assisted living facility.
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Channel 9 was there as the National Guard rescued them into the late hours of the night on Sept. 29 because their home was flooding.
Investigative reporter Shannon Butler was there for those evacuations and was invited back to see some of the residents who had been gone for almost two years.
“We got down to the first floor, and there was 5 feet of water,” Carol Lyons said.
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She said it was terrifying because “everybody on the first floor lost everything.”
And one of those couples was Russ and Pat Luby.
Channel 9 reported on the couple just after Hurricane Ian hit.
Their apartment was on the first floor, and most of what they had was ruined.
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The community is not in a flood zone, but Hurricane Ian was too much for the infrastructure, and the Little Econ River overflowed, flooding dozens of homes in the area.
The residents evacuated that night with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They headed to another facility down south.
They thought the move would last only a couple of days.
“I was down in Port St. Lucie for five days, and when I came back to the community, I realized we weren’t just coming right back,” Katrina Beasley, The Bridge at Orlando’s executive director, said.
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It took more than a year and a half to reopen the facility, and residents have slowly returned.
That includes Russ Luby, who is adjusting to life at The Bridge because he is now alone.
His wife died a year ago.
Right now, the home only has a few people living there, but the grand reopening is on Thursday and they hope to welcome more people home in the coming months.
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