Woman, 105, Was Rescued From Rubble After Tornado

Jayne Huston's Florida home was destroyed in tornado spawned by Hurricane Milton
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 22, 2024 3:30 PM CDT
Woman, 105, Was Rescued From Rubble After Tornado
A family photo of Jayne Huston.   (GoFundMe)

In what her great-grandson says was the scariest moment of her 105 years, Jayne Huston's home was wrecked by a tornado spawned by Hurricane Milton earlier this month. Neighbors heard her screams and pulled her from the rubble of her home in Port Salerno on Florida's east coast, Fox Weather reports. She was hospitalized with injuries including a bruised back and a gash on her foot that needed surgery. "She's distressed. She's upset," great-grandson Rylee Huston, 22, told WPTV last week. "She keeps thinking, 'I want to go home,' but she doesn't have a home to go to."

"Born in 1919, she has seen it all and never once thought her home in Port Salerno could ever be taken away," Rylee Huston says in a GoFundMe fundraiser that has raised more than $6,000 towards helping Huston rebuild her life. Family members have been going through the wreckage to salvage what they can from a lifetime of memories. Rylee Huston describes his great-grandmother, who outlived two husbands, as fiercely independent. "Since the day I've known her, she's always wanted to be out and about and doing her own thing," he says. "She'd rather be at home. But we'll slowly work on getting her somewhere she feels comfortable."

Rylee Huston says the family is trying to figure out the next steps. "If we do decide to rebuild, we will be able to help her best we can, but that is currently not exactly a finite plan right now," he tells TCPalm. "It could be anything from a condo to her own place, but definitely not any kind of assisted living or nursing homes at this moment in time." He tells WPTV that it was a "miracle" that she survived at all. He says she would normally have been in her home's living room but when the tornado hit, she was in the bathroom, which stood up to the high winds that ripped the roof off the house. (More Hurricane Milton stories.)

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