Woman, son flee hurricane, end up in central Ohio

WEST JEFFERSON, Ohio ( WCMH ) — Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated southwest Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton last week. Two of them – a single mother and her son – ended up in central Ohio.

Miranda Pagan said she and her son had just made it through Hurricane Helene living in a mobile home in the Tampa area. She said when she heard Hurricane Milton was coming right for them, she could not take any more chances.

“Yeah, a lot of emotions going through my head,” Pagan said.

She said she filled her car with necessities, then she and her two-year-old son headed north.

“Whether I knew where I was going or not, I didn’t think it was safe for me to be where I was,” Pagan said.

Pagan was talking to her friend, Kayla Reyes, who she met through a mutual family friend at the end of last year. Reyes lives in West Jefferson.

“She was stressing out about, you know, not knowing where to go and not having anywhere to go, so I’m not going to, you know, leave her in her car or something,” Reyes said. “So I was like, ‘Just come up here,’ like, we’ll make it work. She thought about it, prayed on it, and then, you know, and then she’s like, ‘I just, I’m just going to come.’”

Pagan made it to central Ohio on Thursday.

“I’m doing all I can to set up my son’s room for her,” Reyes said. “I try to make it as cute as possible. You know, make a little gift basket for her and her son, a little area for him, some surprises, some things that people have also donated to her and just, you know, letting her know that my home is her home. I always knew I had a purpose in her life and I think it’s just to help her.”

Pagan still does not know what kind of damage her mobile home in Tampa has sustained.

The women said they are doing everything they can to keep Pagan’s son comfortable, even showing him the fall festivities they can’t always find in Florida.

“They’ve helped a lot, too, with donations for him and both of us, so really just what we needed and everything else will come in time,” Pagan said.

Reyes started a GoFundMe page for Pagan and her son to get all the items they lost when they chose to leave for the storm.

Pagan said that with all of the uncertainty she has experienced in the last few years, she is looking for a place to settle down and thinks central Ohio would be an amazing place to do that.

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