3 Florida transplants share their stories of hurricane survival, kindness
Oct. 6—Leave it to a guy from New Kensington to turn a hurricane into a tailgate party.
That's just what John Nader did when Hurricane Ian slammed into Sanibel Island, Fla., last week, destroying his home and heavily damaging his bar and restaurant there.
After riding out the storm in his restaurant, he waited for the floodwaters to recede, fired up his generator and started cooking for rescue workers and neighbors who were trapped on the island because all roads to it were washed out.
"My cottage and my truck are gone," said Nader, a Sanibel Island resident since 2004.
His beachfront cottage was only 30 yards from the water.
"You would think it would be a fun place to be," he said. "But not for this. We never had storm surge before. My cottage was totally gutted; the walls are still standing."
Indeed, the grim stories still are emerging from Florida, where more than 100 lives were lost when Ian hit a week ago.
It is one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the country in at least 40 years, said meteorologist Lee Hendricks of the National Weather Service in Moon Township. Federal agencies continue to tally the damages and losses from the storm.
But there are the survivors — the lucky ones and the ones who helped.
Meals don't go to waste
Nader, 55, a graduate of St. Joseph High School in Natrona Heights, left his cottage in the middle of the night as the storm began to batter his home.
He and a friend holed up during the hurricane in his Pittsburgh-themed sports bar, the Great White Grill, also in Sanibel.
"I tell people I've been down here for two Pittsburgh Super Bowls and three Stanley Cups," he said.
He estimated he has endured about seven hurricanes.
As Hurricane Ian started to slam the Florida coast, Nader was concerned about riding on the "high causeway" off the island because of the storm.
"The more I watched the winds, I thought there would be chaos off-island," he said.
Plus, the Great White Grill was built from cement block.
"Even with 150-plus (mph) winds and losing power, I thought we would be fine," Nader said.
He and other Floridians had weathered hurricanes and storms for years.
"It was the wall of water that did everyone in this time," he said.
Nader and his friend slept in a restaurant booth for several days.
During the storm surge, the water rose 6 feet above the Great White Grill's parking lot.
Through the bar's floor-to-ceiling windows, Nader watched the water push cars and dumpsters away.
Thankfully, the water receded and, last Thursday, Nader started his generators and broke out the Steelers gameday food for a huge outdoor tailgate party for first responders and island residents who were without power and water.
Pre-hurricane, his bar was packed for the game Sept. 22 against the Cleveland Browns. So Nader had stocked up in anticipation of the Oct. 2 Steelers-Jets matchup.
He started grilling hamburgers and other food outside the bar. Residents and businesses pulled food from their quickly thawing freezers and brought it to Nader.
"It was a free tailgate with cooking for four days," he said.
For safety reasons, he knew he had to vacate, as emergency and government officials had much work to do.
"The first responders are outstanding," Nader said. "Them and everybody else that reached out to me, it has been overwhelming. They do things other people won't do. They put other people first."
Nader still has to work with his insurance companies to rebuild his home and business. His daughter set up a GoFundMe page to help. Nader said he wants to use the money for his business and his employees who are out of work.
But, in the short term, Nader is returning to New Kensington this week to be with family and friends. He will head to Buffalo, N.Y., this weekend for a trip he planned six months ago for the Steelers vs. Bills game on Sunday.
Fox Chapel Area grads rescue woman's parents
When former O'Hara residents Chuck and Sue Sterrett were stuck in Fort Myers after fleeing their home on Sanibel Island, two childhood friends worked together to bring the couple home.
Like many people who move to Sanibel Island, the Sterretts vacationed there for years and fell in love with the island community.
They sold their O'Hara residence and bought their Sanibel home in 2017.
Now they find themselves living in their daughter's Mt. Lebanon basement.
They are happy and grateful for their family and a friend who spirited them out of Florida.
But it wasn't easy.
The couple stayed on Sanibel Island until the last minute to help St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church batten down for the hurricane. The pastor and Sterrett thought they might ride out the storm there. But their wives had other plans.
"We decided not to stay because our wives were going to leave us," Sterrett said.
The wind and rain started early Tuesday. Trying to leave Sanibel, the couple took up a friend's offer to hunker down in a second-floor condo in Fort Myers. It was a solid building, about 2 miles inland from the ocean, Sterrett said.
There was little traffic from Sanibel to Fort Myers, which is about a half-hour drive. When they reached Fort Myers, the Sterretts took their dogs for a walk to exercise them before the storm.
The power went out about 11 a.m. Wednesday, and cellphone service was nonexistent. News reports were not reaching them.
"We didn't know it was a Category 4, and we couldn't believe how hard the wind was blowing," Sue Sterrett said.
The couple watched the hurricane from a large window in the condo overlooking the Lexington Country Club golf course.
"We watched trees blow over and then fly away," Chuck Sterrett said.
They watched the water rise in the driveway around their new SUV and saw other cars bobbing in the floodwaters "like toys in a bathtub," Chuck Sterrett said.
With no power, they went to bed at dusk and woke at the first signs of daylight Thursday.
The water receded, but their vehicle, still in the carport, was dead.
"We could walk around the debris. There were dead fish in the parking lot," Chuck Sterrett said.
Sterrett grabbed a bike from the condo and headed to the clubhouse so he could charge his cellphone and get some news.
"Thursday I was worried because I hadn't heard from them until Thursday evening," said their daughter, Sarah Beaudoin, 40.
She and longtime friend Megan Robinson, both 2000 graduates of Fox Chapel Area High School, wanted to rescue the couple.
"The hardest part was no cell communication in the middle of the storm until Thursday evening to figure out if they were OK," said Robinson, who lives in Tampa, about 2 1/2 hours away from the Sterretts.
The Sterretts were having a tough time finding a way out of Fort Myers with two dogs in tow.
They finalized plans late Thursday for Robinson to pick them up Friday.
"It was a relief to know she was willing to go get them and bring them to safety," Beaudoin said.
While Robinson was picking up the Sterretts, Beaudoin found a rental car in Tampa for them to head to her Mt. Lebanon home.
The Sterretts said the exterior of their Sanibel home looks relatively unscathed, based on a photo they received. But no one has stepped inside to assess the damage.
They plan to return as soon as possible to straighten things out and go where they are needed.
"We want to go back and help other people," Chuck Sterrett said. "I'm 71 years old, and I'm one of the youngsters."
New Castle native helps out
Ed Scala, 66, who moved from his native New Castle to Florida three years ago, knows exactly what time Hurricane Ian hit his home, about 40 miles northwest of Orlando.
"It was 3:13 a.m.," said Scala, who lives near Groveland, in central Florida, which was directly in Ian's path once it began turning back eastward. "It was like being beneath a railroad trestle for several hours."
Scala's house is a little more than 60 feet above sea level.
"I'm fortunate that we're higher up than even some of the other folks in our community," he said. "We had some damage to our door and damage from flying debris."
The next day, Scala tossed a chainsaw, shovels and other tools in his car and tried to head out to help neighbors in nearby Winter Park, "but there were just so many lines and trees down, and everything was 2 or 3 feet deep in water," he said.
"The other issue is wildlife. These floodwaters have alligators and snakes in them," he said. "Some of the local cemeteries had so much soil washed away that there were caskets that came back up and were stacking against one another."
Hurricane Ian dumped about 25 inches of rain in central Florida in just over 48 hours.
"One of our biggest issues in this region is that the St. John's River isn't expected to crest until Thursday, and folks in that area are just getting crushed," Scala said. "But they really band together down here. It's a pretty resilient group of people who put politics aside and help one another."
