20 families in Laguna Heights selected for home repairs following tornado
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Dozens of people in Laguna Heights are still making repairs nearly nine months after a tornado destroyed or damaged homes.
Twenty families in Laguna Heights were chosen by Cameron County, along with other organizations, to help with renovations to their homes.
"It's been a blessing to finally be able to see people finally being able to get their stuff back together," resident Alisha Ruz said.
She still remembers that night clearly. She was working a late shift as a taxi driver, her five kids were at home with her father.
Ruz tried to rush home, but debris on the roadways forced the Texas Department of Transportation to close the roads. They wouldn't reopen for four hours.
That's when she was able to see the damages herself.
"Trash everywhere, trees limbs, cars on top of cars, driving through the Heights. I walk through my lake in my front yard basically and go through, all my sliding glass doors were shattered, broken through debris thrown through my roof was torn up," Ruz said.
Now, Ruz and others are getting help to pay for those repairs.
"They're just good people, struggling to make a living for their families. So for us, it feels great to be able to do this," Cameron County Precinct 3 Commissioner David A. Garza said.
Garza says it's been a long journey trying to get the help. The cost of the damage done to homes in Laguna Heights wasn't enough to meet the FEMA threshold. So local leaders had to look for a different route.
"It's always difficult for us because we don't have the density, and we don't have the values like a city, a large city would have like Houston or Corpus [Christi] or something of that sort," Garza said.
Cameron County used some money from the American Rescue Plan. They also partnered up with the Salvation Army and Point Isabel Independent School District.
Cameron County, along with their partners, bought a total of 11 trailers for families to replace their homes.
All 20 families getting help applied for the assistance, and they were chosen based on need and the type of damage.
Watch the video above for the full story.
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