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Madeira Beach hotel helping storm victims
After Florida's Gulf Coast got hit hard by multiple hurricanes, the Cambria Hotel on Madeira Beach is opening its doors to the community.
MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. - The Cambria Hotel usually welcomes travelers to Madeira Beach, but now it's welcoming almost 200 local residents to their temporary home.
From the hotel patio, beach resident Dan Miles can keep an eye on his home across the street. He hasn’t been home since Hurricane Helene, and like many staying at the hotel, he doesn't know when he'll be able to return.
"I'll probably be here a month or two, you know. I don't know," Miles said. "It's going to take them a while."
Manager Steve Lambert said locals will have a room here as long as they need.
"We don't know when you're going to go home and we're just going to put you way out in the future," Lambert said. "We hope you leave early. And that's not our vernacular for a hotel, but it is now."
In the days following Helene and Milton, he says people poured in, needing a place to cool off, charge a phone or get a hot meal.
Then he got the hotel approved through FEMA for long-term stays.
Residents said it's Lambert who has truly turned the hotel into a home away from home.
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