PINE ISLAND, Fla. — A man is now left with nearly a million dollars in damages after Hurricane Milton ripped through southwest Florida.
The man's family reached out to Fox 4's Bella Line after his house caught on fire. Leaving him with nothing but ash where it once stood. All this going on while he's battling a rare lung cancer.
Watch Bella's full report below.
“It was worse than I could imagine," said Dennis Bledsoe, a Pine Island resident.
Bledsoe woke up the morning after Milton to a video from a firefighter at his home while flames blazed.
“He called and said, I'm looking at your house, and it's burned down, and, I mean, it's gone, gone," said Bledsoe.
That morning he returned home to nothing but ash where his home once stood.
“Every day it seems to sink in a little bit more," said Bledsoe. "Family photos of my girls from their whole childhood, you know, and they're completely gone. All the albums, everything.”
Unfortunately, they still don’t have answers for Dennis because the island was under a mandatory evacuation, which he and his neighbors took seriously.
“They said it had to be lightning because power had gone out too many hours prior so that just put it as unknown," said Bledsoe.
Now he’s left with nearly a million dollars of damages all while dealing with a rare lung cancer.
“We talked to Salvation Army, and they said, 'When you get some permanent living situation down the road, give us a call. We'll give you a coupon for 20 bucks or something for clothes,'" said Bledsoe.
But, that won’t begin to replace the memories he’s lost.
One of his friends started a GoFundMe page for him that you can find here.
