Eerie scenes of destruction punctuated by jarring lighthearted moments replayed themselves over and over along Florida’s Gulf coast on Thursday as residents who fled the wrath of Hurricane Ian returned to discover what’s left of their homes.
Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the U.S., made landfall first near Coya Costa, an island off Fort Myers, and then finally on the mainland near Punta Gorda, on Wednesday. For hours, the near-Category 5 storm pummeled the region before barreling through Central Florida, leaving devastation and major flooding in its wake across the state.
‘We’re alive’
At the Port Sanibel Marina on Port Comfort Road, Kelsey Smith, 32, and her boyfriend Nathan Wider were among a group of at least eight people who Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission picked up from the Sanibel Island and dropped off at the marina shortly before 3 p.m. Thursday.
Smith, covered in gray sediment sludge and shoeless, described the havoc through tears — scattered cellphone connectivity leaving many without ways to communicate with loved ones; boats on top of houses; fish and alligators swimming through the street in front of Traders Restaurant on Periwinkle Way; and damage to “almost every house that was a single level or ground level.”
“The island is torn apart,” she said.
Wider, who owns Sanibel Sport Fishing Charters, heard from other charter boat operators that people were taking to attics to avoid flooding, and some were struggling to keep their heads above water, his girlfriend said.
Ahead of the storm, Smith said she parked her car on a ramp about 15 feet high at Jerry’s Foods on Periwinkle Way. It was one of few vehicles that were operable after the storm, so Sanibel Police asked if they could use her Toyota RAV4 for rescue efforts, Smith said.
“Almost everybody we talked to had lost their house,” Smith said.
Christine Heffern, 56, who works at Whitney’s Bait and Tackle on Periwinkle Way, along with Smith, Wider and several others, took shelter at the bait shop owner’s three-story house during the worst of the storm, they said. Water eventually reached the second story of the home.
“Listening to that howl and not knowing how long … It just howled and howled and howled,” Heffern said.
Wider was updating people by phone from the marina parking lot after getting off the island.
“We’re alive,” he answered one call.
Robert Leisure, owner of Getaway Marina at Pelican Bay, arrived at his business on San Carlos Boulevard in Fort Myers Beach Thursday to find it essentially unrecognizable.
The two-story, 50-year-old building that used to house a bait shop, retail and gift shop, two offices, two apartments and a newly built coffee shop that hadn’t yet opened its doors was relegated to only the bare wooden structure of the first floor. The inside was filled with debris to the point of looking like “a bomb went off,” he said. Tanks where the bait shop used to be were among the few discernable items inside.
The building had been submerged at one point, so much so that a boat floating in the storm surge punctured a window on the second floor of the building before it was swept away, he said.
Where a row of docks once stood, an island of plywood and debris pooled against the concrete wall. Unsalvageable everyday household belongings — a couch, a mattress, a suitcase, a pillow, a family photo of two women embracing on a sunny beach — stuck out among the pulverized wood and buildings in the water and parking lot of Leisure’s business.
“This is my first look … I thought maybe the building would still be there and some of the docks would be gone. I didn’t expect it to be total annihilated,” he said.
There is no trace of the two staircases that once attached to both sides of his building, leading up to the second floor. A 50-foot-long tiki hut, his boat, nearly all the things that make up Leisure’s business, were carried out with Ian’s unforgiving waters. What little recognizable things remain, Leisure said he doesn’t know what to do with.
“As far as rebuilding, I have no idea what I’m going to do,” he said.
Leisure said during the storm his neighborhood about 5 miles away in Crown Colony Golf & Country Club was under 4 to 5 feet of water, resulting in flooded garages and storm surges that increased the lakes’ water levels “so high it looked like the ocean.” He was stuck inside his home until Thursday once waters had receded.
“It was like in the movies,” he said.
His daughter called him as he stood near the water, in awe of the hellish destruction where he stood.
“This place is gone. There’s no reason to come, hon’. There’s nothing here,” he said to his daughter on the phone.
‘First time I’ve lost everything’
Some of the first signs of the historic destruction left by Hurricane Ian were evident on Interstate-75 near Golden Gate, about 40 miles south of Fort Myers Thursday morning as at least 50 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission vehicles towed airboats and other watercraft, ATVs and mobile generators and portable bathrooms.
On Thursday afternoon, many residents set out on foot at the corner of Davis Road and McGregor Boulevard in Iona, an unincorporated area of Lee County, to walk down flooded Davis Road back to the homes that they fled earlier in the week. With water rising about knee-high in the deepest parts, people made the trek, pulling kayaks with their pets aboard.
Michele Reidy, her daughter, son, and two grandchildren evacuated from their first- and second-floor apartments on Pine Needle Lane to a hotel in Fort Myers late Wednesday morning ahead of the brunt of the hurricane reaching Lee County. Reidy and her family came back to their neighborhood Thursday morning to rescue Reidy’s two cats, Mimi and Harpo, and were dragging them inside their cat carriers placed safely inside an inflatable kayak.
Reidy said she’s lived in the area for nearly 30 years and not seen damage this extensive.
“This is the first time that I’ve ever lost everything,” she said.
Even the kitchen cabinets in her daughter’s first-floor apartment are gone, she said. Marks inside the apartments showed stagnant water had been sitting at least 6 feet deep.
Becky Schoedel walked to the safe-haven corner of Davis Road and McGregor Boulevard with nothing. She hugged her daughter, who waited there with her young son and husband.
Ian was the first hurricane for Schoedel, who moved to Florida from Pennsylvania a year ago. She evacuated to stay with her daughter and son-in-law in north Fort Myers Tuesday morning. Her villa was in chaos when she returned to see the aftermath for the first time.
“Everything inside is trashed. Upheaved, on top of things that only an ape could lift. It was really sickening. I had to leave,” she said. “I couldn’t even stay in there. It was breaking my heart.”
She walked down the road with water up to her knees.
Noah Warrick, 35, has lived on Heald Lane since 2014. He evacuated with his 7-year-old son Tuesday to a hotel in Naples.
“This was my first trip to see that my home is no longer livable,” he said. He’s in between jobs after working as a truck driver for 10 years and is now left with the immense task of finding a new home for his family.
“The first thing I noticed was the sludge on the floor,” he said. “It smelled like fecal matter.”
As Warrick stood on the corner, a small baby alligator swam alongside debris littering the water.
‘This was terrible’
Jonathan Strong, a Cape Coral resident who said he formerly worked in law enforcement for two years in Florida and as a volunteer firefighter in Virginia for six years, was among the volunteers helping with rescues in Iona.
“I can’t just sit around while my house is intact and let other people suffer. It’s what we do. Community helping community,” he said.
Cassandra Fitzgerald and her husband Kyle Fitzgerald, who live in Citrus County, volunteered for the first time with Cajun Navy Relief, a nonprofit that has deployed volunteers to natural disaster sites. They arrived at a mobile home community in north Fort Myers near Tamiami Trail about 4 a.m. to start rescue operations.
Cassandra said several people they rescued needed to be hospitalized. She drove one woman to Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers after Lee Memorial officials said the hospital was closed.
“This morning we had a veteran that was stuck in his house pretty much chair-bound on oxygen,” Kyle said. “He spent the last 24 hours in there basically sitting on top of his sink. [Water] was four feet into his house.”
The Fitzgeralds said they rescued an elderly woman in the same mobile home park who stayed home during the storm by herself; a neighbor found her floating through the flooded street.
“Shock. Disbelief. Most of them are just grateful that somebody showed up,” Kyle Fitzgerald said.
“Fortunately for us we’ve never really had to deal with anything catastrophic and finally we’re just in a position where we can offer some assistance,” Kyle said about why they volunteered.
Residents who live near the Centennial Park at Fort Myers Wharf trickled into the waterfront park on the Caloosahatchee River about 10 a.m., taking pictures and videos of the destruction.
Rising waters and strong winds shoved a floating concrete dock and cement railing that lined the edge of the park about 100 yards inland. Boats of all sizes near a Joe’s Crab Shack had flipped onto their sides, overturned or were nearly completely swallowed by the river. Several were pushed onto land, stacked on top of each other and crushed into unrecognizable parts.
Glynn Rivers, a resident of Fort Myers since 2000, and her son Max Garramone walked along the waterfront assessing the damage. Rivers said she waited out Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Irma in Fort Myers before. But Ian was a much different experience for her, she said.
Despite living off of McGregor Boulevard, an area that was included in an evacuation zone, she stayed.
“For Charley we were new, so I was a little inexperienced. Irma wasn’t bad, but this was terrible, really for 20 hours. There were waves rolling up our street. I’m lucky that my house didn’t get flooded,” she said.
Rivers said her previous home on the same road closer to the water was destroyed. The windows are gone, rising waters flooded at least 2 feet into the home, dragging furniture away and docks are now parked in peoples’ yards, she said.
Rivers said her daughter works at Gulf Coast hospital and will be there until Saturday; at the hospital, the showers, toilets and sinks are inoperable.
Chris Ulm, who moved to Fort Myers four years ago from Indiana, said he watched the rising waters from his second-story apartment window at Triton Cay on First Street near the riverfront park, second-guessing the decision not to evacuate.
“When we woke up Wednesday morning and realized the path had changed and probably coming directly for us … Did we make the right call?” Ulm said. “It was too late to get on the road …”
Angie DiMichele can be reached at adimichele@sunsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @angdimi
