ST. Petersburg, Florida. — The stench was strong.
A strong smell of mold, sewage and decay wafted through the sticky air Twin Cities Mobile Home Park Saturday, just three days after wind and rain from Hurricane Milton halted typical mobile home pickup.
Located near the Gandy Bridge and home to the city's most vulnerable residents, the community had already been devastated by Hurricane Helena before Milton made landfall on Wednesday in Siesta Key, about 50 miles south of St. Petersburg.
“These last two hurricanes were the worst things that ever happened here,” said James William Lawson Jr., 61, who lived in a tent on his land and only went into his wrecked trailer to get water because of the mold. , I think, dealt the final blow.”
Another longtime tenant, Ninda Menegius, 70, said she has to wear a medical mask every time she ventures inside the rest of her trailer.
“It’s been one thing after another,” said Menegius, who has lived in a Twin Cities trailer park for 11 years. “I cry and cry and cry and I’m a very strong person.”
The development is managed by a company called Lakeshore Management. Before the attack on Milton, several tenants accused the company of misleading them about the risk of flooding when they rented land for their trailers.
They also said Lakeshore management is making them pay monthly rent even if they don't live there.
The company's vice president of field operations deflected NBC News' questions about the flooding and rental rates, but said they are already “doing everything we can to help our residents during this difficult time.”
“We are working with utility companies to restore power and direct residents to key resources available at all levels of government, including FEMA,” Sean Halladay said in an email Tuesday. “We are all in this together and we are committed to doing our part to restore our community.”
NBC News reached out to Halladay again on Saturday for an update. There was no immediate response.
“We think it's morally and terribly wrong to only look at the community that you manage and operate, but you have to take care of them, lose absolutely everything in your name and still claim money,” said tenant Jesse Hancock on Saturday.
Milton, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, damaged Florida's barrier island. The storm packed 100 mph winds along the Gulf Coast and 6 feet of storm surge before moving inland, killing at least 17 people and causing billions of dollars in damage across the state before reaching the Atlantic Ocean.
But like Milton On Siesta Key, the Twin Cities were still recovering from Hurricane Helen, which hit the Florida Panhandle on Sept. 26 and destroyed much of the mobile home park.
Many trailer homes in the Twin Cities were deemed uninhabitable by city inspectors, who posted signs in bright red letters on the structures that said “unsafe” and “do not enter or occupy.” And being in a low-lying area, the Twin Cities were part of a mandatory evacuation zone.
Menegius returned home on Friday to take Milton to a nearby hotel on higher ground to assess the damage. He expressed relief that his little “mansion” was not completely flat, unlike the homes of many of his neighbors.
Inside, however, Menegius discovered that the mold that had formed after Helen flooded him with four feet of water was now widespread, eating away at his ruined belongings.
Even with their masks on, Menegius said, she and her husband developed a dry cough from spending long hours inside the trailer. But they're stuck because they don't have money to go anywhere else, he said, and they don't have anywhere else to go.
“Money, take you and break it,” he said. “And believe me, my friend, it is true.”
Hancock, 39, and Rhea Blight, 34, took shelter at Blight's father's home in nearby Pinellas Park.
They returned to the Twin Cities on Saturday to see what else they could salvage from the trailer. They were moving Helen's damaged wooden cabinets and furniture when NBC News arrived.
Both said they were also relieved that Milton didn't completely destroy or destroy their home. But they said they had to remove and replace all of the house's mold-infested drywall, insulation and cabinets and spray the bottom with bleach to make it habitable again.
“Take some of this mud and smell it — this is what our house smells like,” Hancock said, pointing to the sewage-contaminated mud that was on the street in front of his destroyed home. “It smells like you put food in the fridge and left it open for months.”
Still, Hancock says he has no plans to move. He said over the past seven years he has invested about $50,000 in his home and has no choice but to remodel it.
Hancock and Blight, both part-time UPS employees, said they hope FEMA will help cover some of their new costs.
“We can’t leave yet,” Hancock said. “We have nowhere else to go. … It’s our life savings.”
Lawson said he was “absolutely heartbroken” when he returned to the Twin Cities after Milton. When the storm destroyed many of her friends, she said, leaving was not an option for her, even though she wasn't sure the community would ever recover.
“We’ve all had enough heartbreak in our lives,” she said. “They're just family in my trailer, you know. But I take care of them.”
Matt Laviets reports from St. Petersburg. Corky Simesco reports from New York City.
