>
The magnitude of the destruction in southwest Florida is still becoming apparent in the wake of Hurricane Ian, with new photos showing how the monster storm devastated coastal communities.
Fort Myers Beach, a town of about 5,500 on one of the barrier islands off the coast of Fort Myers, was “90 percent” destroyed by the storm, an official said.
“I’ve made it to about two-thirds of the island and I’d say 90 percent of the island is pretty much gone,” Fort Myers Beach Town Councilman Dan Allers told me. CNN.
“Unless you have a high-rise apartment or a newer concrete house built to the same standards today, your house is pretty much gone,” he added.
The mayor of Fort Myers, the larger mainland city, marveled at the destructive power of the Category 4 storm on Friday morning amid the wreckage of devastated marinas.
‘Just look at the boats. These are some big boats. And they’ve been thrown around like they were toys,” Mayor Kevin Anderson said CNN. “They were thrown around like they were nothing.”
The Sanibel Causeway can be seen before and after Hurricane Ian, which destroyed the bridge span in at least five places. The causeway is the only connection between mainland Fort Myers and the Sanibel and Captiva Islands
A marina in Fort Myers can be seen before and after the storm. Fort Myers mayor Kevin Anderson says boats and parts of docks ‘were thrown around like toys’
Fort Meyers Beach can be seen before and after the storm. The city on the barrier island was destroyed by the hurricane
Fort Myers Beach, a town of about 5,500 on one of the barrier islands off the coast of Fort Myers, was “90 percent” destroyed by the storm, an official said.
FORT MYERS BEACH: Jake Moses, 19, left, and Heather Jones, 18, of Fort Myers, explore some of destroyed businesses after Hurricane Ian
Anderson said some 200 residents were rescued from their homes after the storm erupted on Wednesday.
Amazingly, he said there were no confirmed fatalities in Fort Myers itself, which was the epicenter of destruction when the storm made landfall.
A handful of deaths in the storm have been confirmed, but 48 hours after the hurricane first hit Florida, the hundreds of fatalities predicted by the Lee County Sheriff, including Fort Myers, have so far failed to materialize.
Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis said Friday the National Guard is handing out food and water, and 100,000 tarps are being handed out to temporarily protect homes with roof damage.
“Many of these places, except for a piece of concrete, there is nothing left for these people, they don’t know where to return to,” she said in an interview with Fox news.
Ian isn’t done wreaking havoc either, with the storm set to make landfall again in the Carolinas Friday as a Category 1 hurricane, putting the entire coast of South Carolina under hurricane watch.
Meanwhile, in Florida, stunning before and after shots captured devastation in the Fort Myers area, with homes being razed, ships swept ashore and fires breaking out in ghost town neighborhoods.
It will take months to clean up all the damage, and maybe longer. Some of the destruction will be irreparable.
From trees being ripped from the ground to signs being ripped apart, traffic lights crashing into roads and some buildings simply being destroyed, the impact was everywhere and almost nothing was spared.
A commercial district in Fort Myers Beach can be seen before and after Hurricane Ian swept through it
The Ambassador Condominium in Fort Myers Beach is seen before and after the storm
The approach to San Carlos Island is seen before the storm, then as boats run aground in a wooded area and by the roadside after being pushed by the rising waters of Hurricane Ian at Fort Myers Beach
FORT MYERS: Hurricane Ian left much of the southwest Florida coast in darkness early Thursday, triggering “catastrophic” flooding that has sent officials preparing massive relief for a storm of rare intensity
The only difference between one place and another was the severity of the problems.
“We’ll get through this,” said Vice Mayor Richard Johnson of Sanibel, Florida. “And on the other hand, we come out better than we went in.”
Maybe, but it will be a huge undertaking, from the cosmetic to the crucial and everything in between.
Fort Myers Beach has simply been destroyed. Companies are gone. Jobs are clearly being lost, at least temporarily. The clearing will take weeks and that will almost certainly precede any reconstruction.
“Our entire staff is safe and although the restaurant has suffered incredible damage, the structure of the building is intact,” the owner of Nervous Nellie’s, a beachfront seafood restaurant, said in a statement. “We hope to work our way through this and come back stronger than ever.”
Around the region – Naples, Fort Myers, Sanibel – the extent of the damage is impossible to ignore.
Along US 41, the region’s main road, numerous outdoor business signs have been damaged, cracked, or simply disappeared.
The steel poles with street signs in the ground are bent backwards, no match for Ian’s wind and force.
The doors of the garages of the storage rooms were twisted, causing the belongings to fly into the air in some rooms. Most traffic lights are off, in some cases wires dangling from the road below.
And in one case, a metal road sign directing drivers to Interstate 75 was crushed by an electronic road sign warning drivers of a closed lane.
FORT MYERS BEACH: An aerial view shows boats next to a house after Hurricane Ian passed through the area
A damaged commercial building in Fort Meyers Beach is seen before and after the storm
“I’ve seen some things,” said Clark Manchin, a construction project manager, as he assessed the mess. “I’ve never seen that.”
Patience soon ran thin. A 7-Eleven employee begged people filling her store: Not $20, please. Only small bills. “If I run out of change, we’ll have to close,” she begged. There was no gas, no hot food and – because there was no running water – no coffee or bathrooms.
“I didn’t take this as seriously as I should have,” said Mark Crow of Naples. ‘I didn’t stock up. I didn’t get in. It’s a mess, man. It’s bad.’
Fortunately, some of the damage was only cosmetic. The 150-foot-high, 250-foot-deep nets surrounding a Top Golf facility in Fort Myers were shredded, swaying in the afternoon breeze, not far from where a shredded American flag rested on a pole in an office complex.
BONITA SPRINGS: A Plymouth vehicle was turned upside down outside a luxury beachfront property badly hit by the storm
BONITA SPRINGS: Vehicles float in the water after Hurricane Ian in Bonita Springs, Florida. Hurricane Ian brought high winds, storm surge and rain to the area, causing severe damage
FORT MYERS: Stedi Scuderi overlooks her apartment after it flooded as Hurricane Ian swept through the area in Fort Myers, Florida
At Florida Gulf Coast University, a grandstand — once on the sidelines of the football field — blew halfway down the field, crushing one of the goals.
In other areas, the damage was much greater. At a Fort Myers RV park, debris from a destroyed golf cart drifted into deep standing water on Thursday, long after the storm subsided.
Fallen power lines and the destroyed poles to which they were attached blocked the entrance. And down the street was a barn-style building under construction. The walls collapsed, the roof clamped the shredded wood to the ground.
The damage assessments and cleanup have only just begun.
“We have to be patient,” said Sanibel councilor John Henshaw. ‘We have to go and see where we are going to live and live for a long time. Not sure exactly what that is. We will learn more as we go through this process.”