RICHMOND, Va. -- Nearly six years ago, Savannah Hughes and Dylan Southall picked up everything and moved from Virginia to Cape Coral, Florida.
After Hurricane Ian, what's left of the life they created there is destroyed.
"I don't think we realized how rough it was going to be," Hughes said. "I didn't have the thought in my head that I'm not going to be able to come back for this stuff."
The Category 4 hurricane, originally set to hit near Tampa, made landfall in Southwest Florida near Cape Coral and Fort Myers.
"The day before the storm, we saw it was looking like a direct hit, so the day of the storm we packed a few things in our truck, and we headed out about 20 miles from the shoreline and hunkered down with a friend to ride out the storm," Southall said.
"We were watching from behind his impact windows. We could see his fence destroyed, his neighbors had their entire screened-in porch ripped off and thrown away," he said. "We were listening to transformers blow all night."
The two could only get cell reception in one spot at their friend's home, trying to reach out to their family in Virginia when they could.
They saw videos and pictures of their neighborhood as the storm raged on. One of their neighbors swam through the storm surge to a nearby vacation home, hoping to get her family to safety as their own home took on water.
"Just to see the destruction, and people's houses and boats out of the canal onto people's homes, just powerlines smashed together, it was wild," Southall said.
Once they packed up what belongings they could salvage from the floodwaters, the couple headed home, finding the first functioning gas station nearly 60 miles outside of Cape Coral.
They had to wait about three hours in line to get gas and were able to get the last room at the last hotel room they could find on their route home through Florida.
While the couple has been in Virginia for about a week now, photos and videos of the destruction continue to haunt them.
"It's tough to look at. Those are our neighbors. Those are people that, you know, we would smile and wave at as they played with their children in the front yard. And now that's under six feet of water. You can see a fish jumping in the middle of Southwest First Court," the couple said as they replayed video of the storm surge coming in.
"It's strange. It's surreal. And it's somewhere that we always thought was safe."
The couple said it will take months to determine the true extent of their home's damage. Their hurricane insurance was also denied. For now, they're staying with their family.
"I don't think it's really set in yet. We try to come up to Virginia as much as we can for vacation, so it kind of just feels like that, but you know, you gotta reconcile that there's nothing to go back to. There's no home to go back to. There's no bed waiting for us. It's all gone. And what's gone is ruined," the couple said.
The couple says they're still determining if they'll decide to stay in Southwest Florida.
"The storm just changed so much. Not just physically, but I think we're both very shaken up by it. It's traumatizing. So, we're just not really sure. Like you said, it's all just a big question mark right now," Hughes said.
Though they say they've lost everything, one thing the couple does have, however, is hope.
The two are getting married on October 15 in Lunenburg, something they've been planning for years.
"Somehow, somewhere, we'll figure out a way to make a home. I have faith in that," Southall said.
The couple does have a GoFundMe to help them cover damages and other hurricane-induced payments.
