Woman still has tree on house months after Hurricane Helene damaged her property

LAKE CITY, Fla. (WCJB/Gray News) - A woman still has a tree on her house months after Hurricane Helene ripped through Florida.

A large tree fell on Marc Munden’s home in September during Helene. The damage keeps getting worse.

“It’s poked a hole in the roof so that one of the extra rooms in the house has leakage,” Munden said.

Munden received $750 from FEMA for food, water and generation repairs. After Helene, FEMA approved $330 million just in debris removal reimbursements.

Munden says contractors quoted her $14,000 to remove her debris and repair her roof.

“The first six weeks after the storm, I wouldn’t sleep in there. I didn’t know if the tree was going to settle,” she said.

FEMA spokesperson Alberto Pilot said her application for more assistance is still open and they are working with Munden.

Munden said an inspector looked at her home in November, but she has not heard back since.

“It’s been very inconvenient to say the least. I have no family close by,” she said. “I have no family close by so there is nobody but one buddy that comes to help when I’m desperate. There’s no instruction manual to handle something like this.”

Munden is a Navy veteran and said this has only furthered her frustration with the federal government.

“That is my life, being of service to people,” she said. “I don’t understand why our government cannot be of service to us.”

Her mom owns the house but recently moved into a full-time care facility.

“My mother did not have homeowner’s insurance,” Munden said. “They dropped her in August, about a month and a half before the storm.”

She said she was also denied personal property insurance claims. FEMA caseworkers are reaching out to Munden to go over her case and see what her eligibility is.