Lake City family’s home left partially damaged when tree fell through roof

LAKE CITY, Fla. – Residents in Columbia County are starting to pick up the pieces after Hurricane Helene damaged many parts of the area.

Some of those include the Hughes family.

A large tree fell on top of Rachel and Jonathan Hughes’s home on Castillo Terrace in Lake City which they were renting.

RELATED: Columbia County asks everyone to stay off roads because of debris from Hurricane Helene

“It’s brought a different level of anxiety that I really didn’t know I had,” Rachel Hughes said. “Not knowing if the rest of the house is going to fall in on us at any moment.”

And it didn’t just damage her home, it dented the corner of her neighbor’s home as well.

It crushed their air conditioning unit and ruined a Jeep parked between both homes.

The tree also penetrated the roof, stopping a few feet from where her 2-year-old daughter was sleeping.

“She’s good,” Rachel Hughes said when asked how her daughter is doing now. “She was shaken up when it first happened, but luckily, she has both of us there so we calmed her down.”

Rachel and Jonathan said they reached out to the owner of the home and the company managing it for help.

But claim both, wanted her and her husband to solve this problem.

So News4JAX reached out to both but did not immediately hear a reply.

Rachel said she and Jonathan are going to fight to get the problem resolved or get some assistance.

She also said her children are staying with their grandparents right now while she and her husband stay in the house until they can find a safe place to live.


About the Author

Khalil Maycock joined the News4JAX team in November 2022 after reporting in Des Moines, IA.

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