Residents of a retirement community in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida who survived Hurricane Milton and the ensuing tornadoes recounted their dreadful experiences on Saturday.
The U.S. National Weather Service issued a staggering 126 tornado warnings across Florida this past week after Hurricane Milton made landfall on October 9 as a Category three storm. The unprecedented number of warnings in a single day left many communities reeling.
Among the hardest hit was Spanish Lakes Country Villages in St. Lucie County, where two tornadoes hit. The second tornado, an EF2 with winds reaching 220 km/h, uprooted homes and tragically claimed the lives of six members of this close-knit retirement community.
Henry Pierce, a Spanish Lakes resident, recalled the horror of seeing his home destroyed while he was still in it.
"It went right over my head. I was in my house, the house was lifting and I ran through and the house was lifting up, and I guess the pressure from the wind blew the windows in and the roof blew off, and I was on my knees next to my freezer looking up, and I watched the roof of my house blow off, and I watched the tornado go right over my head at the same time," he said.
In the midst of chaos, Pierce rushed out to help his neighbors, only to find that they had been killed in the storm.
"I ran out of the house and I started, I looked over there and I said, 'Those are my friends. Those are my neighbors.' I went to try to find them, but I found two passed, and one we couldn't find," said Pierce.
"And then the two people that lived where that van is, as soon as the wind stopped, I was running everywhere trying to help people. I found them. He was passed, but she was still alive at the time. I helped get the roof off her legs with a couple of policemen, and they took her away," said Pierce.
Claudia Peak, another resident, said that three of her neighbors died on Wednesday, and three more on the other side of her trailer.
"I wasn't concerned about dying. I really wasn't. He (God) is not done with me, and that's the only thing I can put together -- that's the reason we are still alive. And so much devastation, and every day they have the cadaver dogs coming through looking for people still," said Peak.
Still processing the overwhelming devastation around her, Peak is now staying with her partner at a neighbor's home.
The landowners of her leased property have informed her that they will soon clear her lot.
"I was able to salvage clothes and a few dishes, kitchen stuff -- all the stuff that costs big money to replace. I don't know what I'm going to do with it all, but we do have a tent and an air mattress, whatever. I have no idea. I have no idea. My mind can't even wrap around that. This thing totaled both of our cars," said Peak.
Pierce is staying with his next-door neighbor, Carol Fensterer, who is 91. Her home is one of the few that withstood the fury of the second tornado.
"Now I have a good helper here. He takes care of me. I can't drive anymore. My eyesight's not that good, so he does the driving," said Fensterer.
Despite the devastation, these resilient seniors embody hope and strength, working together to clean up the remnants of their lives.
Retired survivors recount harrowing experience of Florida's hurricanes-induced tornadoes
China's real estate market has seen an upswing this month as homebuyer confidence recovers following a series of stimulus measures announced by central government departments and many local governments to boost the healthy development of the country's pillar industry.
Many cities announced that they would further optimize their local property policies, taking measures such as reducing down payment rates for both first-home and second-home purchases, lowering the purchase threshold for nonlocal buyers and adjusting existing home mortgage rates.
In east China, the coastal city of Weihai, Shandong Province and Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province both set a consistent minimum down payment ratio for loans on both first and second homes, slashing the minimum down payment for second-home loans from the previous 25 percent to 15 percent.
Tianjin Municipality's Binhai High-tech Industrial Development Area recently announced that eligible employees working in Beijing no longer need to meet pre-existing conditions to purchase a home and gain residence permits.
These measures are expected to drive China's consumer spending and bolster economic growth this year, said Yu Xiaofen, dean of the China Academy of Housing and Real Estate at Zhejiang University of Technology.
"Overall, market participants are shifting towards a more positive outlook and the effects of these policies can be expected. During this year's National Day holiday, over 100 cities, including Wuhan, Changsha, and Nanjing, organized various promotional activities such as an autumn seasonal promotion, housing expos and shows. We believe that these activities play a very positive role in boosting the interest of homebuyers, increasing willingness to purchase, cutting home buying costs, and restoring confidence in the market," said the scholar.
Thanks to these favorable policies, China's residential real estate market witnessed buoyant sentiment across major cities.
In Shenzhen, the populous tech hub of south China's Guangdong Province, a three-day real estate fair kicked off on Friday and attracted crowds of local residents and even homebuyers from surrounding cities. The fair followed the city's lifting of key restrictions on home purchases and lowering of the minimum down payment for first homes to 15 percent of the purchase price, and to 20 percent for second homes.
"Due to good policies and promotional activities, I made a special trip here," said a homebuyer from Zhuhai, a city just south of Guangzhou.
From October 1 to 7, a total of 1,841 new commercial houses were sold in the city, skyrocketing more than 660 percent from a year ago, according to statistics from the Housing and Construction Bureau of Shenzhen.
Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province, scrapped all home-buying restrictions on September 30, making it the first time a city its size has lifted home purchasing requirements. Guangzhou has witnessed a substantial rise in the transaction volume for both new and pre-owned homes over the past weeks.
Wang Huan, director of a new housing project in the city, reported that their sales volume since the last day of September has exceeded 120 units, or three times the original sales target.
"After the purchase restrictions were fully lifted, the location of our project changed from a restricted purchase area to a non-restricted purchase area. So, our sales have shown significant growth since the first day of the policy implementation," he said.
Data showed that from October 1 to 7, new home sales in Guangzhou stood at 5,855 units, higher than the total sales volume of the entire August and September this year.
Meanwhile, the enthusiasm in the city's pre-owned housing market is also on the rise. Huang Anfu, the store manager of a real estate agency, reported that the number of property viewings and inquiries at his store has doubled compared to normal since the lifting of purchase restrictions.
China's housing market picks up amid bundle of stimulus measures
