Experienced search and rescue volunteer won't forget "weird" Hurricane Ian
Curtis Drafton was still wearing his waders and life preserver as he patrolled by Joe’s Crab Shack on West First Street in downtown Fort Myers Thursday afternoon.
The emergency search and rescue volunteer has been through many storms during his 10 years of service and said Hurricane Michael that hit the Panhandle in 2018 was the worst, but he’ll remember Hurricane Ian as the weirdest.
Drafton, the founder of US Veterans Hall of Fame and his team of volunteers from North Carolina arrived around 1 p.m. Wednesday and was sent right to work around downtown Fort Myers, making 19 water rescues and two home rescues.
“As soon as we landed up here we had three rescue calls. They were like we need you guys now, so yeah, I got like tons of experience in my first couple hours,” Drafton said.
“We had a 90-year-old ride out the storm in his sailboat. We asked him why he said listen, I'm 90 years old I got nothing to lose and I'm not married. But yeah, he rode out the whole storm.”
And the video circulating on social media of a shark swimming in downtown Fort Myers, Drafton said it happened.
“There were sharks, we had about three. I think one black tip. I don't know what the other one was. But then we also had tarpon. We had tarpon on land (at) FGCU, we had one downtown on Main Street and Monroe Street. … There were sharks out of water as well so it’s been weird.”
Many of the concrete docks along Centennial Park and the Fort Myers Yacht Basin ended up on land blocks from the water. Some in downtown Fort Myers itself.
“And that's what I was telling people like there's no way you can tell me that heavy piece of equipment only got moved by 150ish miles per hour wind. And I get it they float, but where they are in downtown, I was like how they maneuver through buildings and everything?
“I’ve never seen the weird damage here, and I’m gonna call it weird, because, for one, the water is already gone and they were saying the city sewer system here isn’t great but it obviously is for it to drain millions and millions of gallons of ocean water in what, six, seven hours? Like it's been dry.”
With search and rescue over, Drafton and his team members are helping patrol the streets in case of looting and he believes they will do so for the next two days.
Drafton said a man had broken into the downtown Starbucks and was stealing coffee.
“He threw the stuff down and ran and we were like, no point in chasing.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Experienced search and rescue volunteer won't forget Hurricane Ian
