The Devastation of Fort Myers, Fla. During the Hurricane Ian Arrived on Cape Canarias, South Carolina: Mayor Kevin Anderson
Fort Myers Mayor Kevin Anderson described the devastation wrought by Hurricane Ian. There are some big boats on the ground and some small boats on the river dock.
The dock was damaged by the storm surge and could weigh as much as a ton. “They were thrown around like they were nothing.”
He said it was good for people to see the extent of the destruction, but that it was horrible. So when storms are on the way… They take our advice very seriously.
The city has no reported fatalities, and authorities, who have rescued more than 200 people, confident that they have gotten everybody, Anderson told CNN. The city’s biggest needs now are for electricity and water.
Resident can expect power back bit by bit each day, he said, adding that 80% of the city is still without power, even though crews are already working on restoration.
I want people to stay at home until we get the roads cleared and the power lines secured. It’s not safe out there. There are trees still ready to fall. There’s more deaths after hurricanes, because of people hitting power lines.
Although state officials had not released a death toll by late in the day, Mr. DeSantis said Thursday night that “we absolutely expect” to learn of storm-related fatalities as rescuers work through a backlog of 911 calls and scour the most devastated neighborhoods. More than 500 people in Charlotte and Lee Counties, the hardest hit, had been rescued on Thursday, the Florida Division of Emergency Management said; the small town of Fort Myers Beach, on a barrier island just off the coast, appeared decimated.
As Ian was leaving Florida, it became a major storm again at sea, which means it could strengthen again before returning to land in South Carolina by Friday.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — A year ago, Francie Pucin moved from Illinois to Florida, eager to enjoy the better weather that the Sunshine State ostensibly has to offer.
The Florida-Ian-Fort-Myers-Sanibel-Island-Lee-County Disaster Recovery Plan
She evacuated at the last minute on Wednesday ahead of the storm, as did nearly all her neighbors. Everyone made it through the storm alive in this close-knit community, she says.
She considers herself lucky than many of her neighbors. At least she has a place to go — her snowbird parents, who live in Pompano Beach on the other side of Florida.
It’s difficult to fulfill everyday needs for residents in and around Fort Meyer, even those who weren’t injured in their homes. Power is still out in many areas. There are still boil orders in place, despite the fact that water has been largely restored. There are lines for gasoline in many places.
The Army Corps of Engineers has been called to help with the water system, and power has been restored for a little more than half of the customers who lost it.
Search and rescue missions and restoring water and power services are some of the priorities according to the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We’re already beginning our planning processes for what the recovery is going to look like,” Criswell tells NPR’s Weekend Edition. “So while we’re still saving lives and stabilizing this incident, we know that we’re going to have a long and complex recovery. So we’re putting the measures in place right now to make sure we’ve got the right people on the ground to do that in the days to come.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/02/1126410632/florida-hurricane-ian-fort-myers-sanibel-island-lee-county-recovery
The Flooding of Fort Myers Beach, Fla. After Hurricane Ian Surrenders, Ciry Sosa and Rob Walton, Los Alamos, Florida
Even though heavy rain has left the state, all that rain that we did have is continuing to drain through our river system, which has seen historic rises on many rivers across a good portion of west central.
There is a strong case for that, as evidenced by the traffic jams and detours on a section of I-75 that were caused by a sudden rise in the Myakka River. The highway was reopened by Saturday afternoon.
David Merrick is director of the Florida State University Center for Disaster Risk Policy and coordinates the state’s drone reconnaissance. He has teams flying drones over the worst-hit areas, taking video of the damage.
He says people who are without power, without water, or who don’t have access to their homes thought they were fine yesterday or the day before.
Sanibel Island is only accessible by a narrow causeway that was cut by the storm and is the most isolated area in the state. It took until Friday for rescue crews to begin ferrying people off the island.
Chelle Walton and her husband, Rob, have lived on Sanibel since 1981. They’ve seen a lot of hurricanes, but by the time Ian shifted toward them last week, it was too late to leave. Lee County officials have been criticized for not ordering evacuation early enough.
As the sea rushed in and began filling up their house, she and her husband made a last phone call to their son, Aaron, with the water up to their chests.
A month after Hurricane Ian swept across Florida, Ciry Sosa and her family are still living in the Fort Myers Beach apartment where the dirty salt water rose up to 4 feet, destroying most of their belongings and leaving behind mold on the walls. They are sleeping on air mattresses and relying on donations of food, clothes and other essentials from neighbors and community groups.
Pucin, who moved to Florida from the Chicago area last year, has temporarily relocated to her parents’ condo in Pompano Beach, Florida. When she regained access to the internet, she spent 20 minutes applying for FEMA aid online, which she said was a very easy process. She was confused by the notice that her claim was pending, but she couldn’t call when she called. Then she tried at 7 a.m., spoke to a representative and resolved the issue quickly.
She has not been told from the agency tasked with helping Americans cope with disasters in the last year. FEMA gave $700 to many of her neighbors to help them with immediate needs, but she didn’t get any of it.
Staying in a hotel or renting an apartment is costly for the family. And they are waiting to hear from their auto insurer about a payout for their 2005 Ford Explorer that also flooded.
FEMA is also providing a roof over the heads of more than 2,100 households, with a total of nearly 5,400 people, through the Transitional Sheltering Assistance Program, which allows FEMA to directly pay hotels and motels in Florida, Alabama and Georgia that provide emergency shelter to survivors.
The reviews are mixed but not new. FEMA has long been criticized for providing inequitable responses to hurricanes. The US Commission on Civil Rights published a report which recommended that the agency focus on survivors with the greatest needs, particularly people of color and low-income residents.
FEMA says disaster survivor assistance specialists have interacted with more than 60,000 people. Hundreds of inspectors have assessed the damage to more than 164,000 homes.
To receive help, homeowners must first verify their identity and ownership, as well as show whether they have insurance that could cover the damage. Then FEMA assesses the extent of the damage and whether it’s affected the owner’s ability to live safely in the home. The agency next determines how much it will award the homeowner based on the level of damage and average prices for materials and repairs in the local area.
Recovering A Florida Hurricane Victim’s Boot: A Statewide Assessment of the FEMA Housing Program and the Status of Sued RV Resort in Lee County
And on Wednesday, the agency approved Florida’s request for direct temporary housing in four counties, providing travel trailers and larger manufactured housing units to survivors.
Survivors who feel they’ve been overlooked should make sure their application and answers are up to date, said Melissa Forbes, assistant administrator for recovery at FEMA. They can also call the help line – 800-621-3362 – to have a representative guide them through the process or let them know what else they may need to submit.
“So that the onus is really not placed on them, but rather, we’re sort of helping them manage their way through the program itself,” said Forbes, who noted that the agency has “some room to grow to be better able to support renters.”
She didn’t need the title documents she took from her home when she fled because the inspector looked up her tax record on the website. She had the funds in her bank account within two days.
Pucin is a retired insurance agent. “I thought ‘Wow, what an amazing country we live in.’ I hope they are there for everyone like they were for me.”
It is rumored that Lee County may not allow residents of the Palmetto Palms RV Resort to rebuild since it is just a few miles from the gulf.
Meanwhile, Pucin is still waiting to hear from FEMA about receiving a trailer to live in while she determines what to do with her home. Since she has to vacate her parents’ place in mid-November, she expects to need the agency’s rental assistance because she doesn’t think she’ll receive the trailer until early next year.
One remaining issue: She is weighing whether to file a claim with FEMA for the contents of her home. The SBA offers low-interest loans to homeowners and renters who are affected by disasters, but they must apply for the loan first. Then, she can turn to FEMA for funds.
If Karen Watmough doesn’t get FEMA funds soon, she may have to move back to Tennessee to live with her dad. About to turn 60, she doesn’t relish the idea.
Watmough had lived on a sailboat at a Fort Myers Beach marina since 2016. She was on vacation further north in Florida when Ian hit. She and her friends spent three days searching for the boat, named after the Saharan Air Layer, which has been shown to suppress the activity of hurricanes. It ended up on land, around the corner from the marina, under two shrimp boats.
Watmough, who worked as a housekeeper at a beach resort that flooded, called FEMA in early October and got through right away. Someone would look at the boat when the rep opened the claim for her.
On October 20, the inspector came, took whatever pictures he could and declared it a total loss. He was fantastic, Watmough said, helping her recall the items she had on board. But he said he didn’t have a line item for boats that were primary residences. He wrote the dimensions, which were 36-feet long by 14-feet wide.
She is expecting to hear about the assistance she will receive from the agency. The annual premium of the insurance was tripled to $1,000, so Watmough canceled it and plans to buy a camper or trailer.
It is up in the air, but Watmough is living with a friend in Fort Myers while he knows what FEMA does. “It’s pretty much one day at a time.”
Robert Heather has been in trouble with the FEMA for the loss of his apartment in Fort Myers Beach, as well as the fact that his neighbors saved him through a window. He then went to stay with a friend in Nashville, where he had to buy new clothes since he lost virtually all his belongings, as well as his car, in the hurricane.
About 10 days after filing his application, he called and learned his claim had been closed because he wasn’t on site for an inspection and hadn’t designated anyone as his representative. He wasn’t paid $700 for his immediate needs since the liquor store and inn where he had part time jobs were closed due to storm damage.
Because he’s not confident he’ll ever receive any money from FEMA, he’s not rushing to return and reopen the claim. He thinks he will get it in early November.
Heather, 73, said she had no faith in them. He is hoping to get a loan from his bank to buy a trailer so that he can live in Fort Myers Beach when his apartment isn’t worth much anymore.