SIMON OSTROVSKY, NEWSHOUR WEEKEND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT:

The reason they didn't celebrate around the dining room table? they no longer have one.

Turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, everything you need for the perfect Thanksgiving except for the most important thing: A home. Like thousands of others in this area, the Boutchers lost everything in October in the most powerful storm to hit the Florida panhandle in history: Hurricane Michael.

Michael pounded the gulf shore with 155-mile-per-hour winds that laid waste to entire cities doing billions of dollars' worth of damage. At least 52 people across the us south-east were killed and up to 20,000 more were left homeless. Six weeks after the storm James Boutcher and his family are among the thousands of people county officials told us were still without adequate housing. They've been living in this shelter with over one hundred others.