“I’m glad to be alive:" Stories of survival, gratitude, regret in wake of Hurricane Ian
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TALLAHASSEE — Rescues took place up and down the southwest coast of Florida on Friday, the unofficial death toll rose to 21 and more than a million are still without power. All because of Hurricane Ian, which President Joe Biden said is “likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history.”
He said the Category 4 storm produced devastation in Florida that will take “months — years — to rebuild.”
On Friday, stories poured in from the battered coast: Of deaths, of heroic rescues, of gratitude ... of regret, with some who stayed put admitting they greatly miscalculated the massive storm's powerful wind and storm surge.
“I’m glad to be alive,” said 81-year-old Punta Gorda resident Susan DiGregorio. She had planned to evacuate, but the person who was to help her leave had COVID-19 and DiGregorio weighed the risks and decided to stay.
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During the height of the storm, she heard aluminum screaming as her roof was ripped off. She said she made peace with death.
“I’m glad to see the sun," she said Friday. "I’m glad to hear the birds that made it through the storm.”
Others weren't so lucky.
Florida officials said there could be at least 21 fatalities over multiple counties.
Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said 12 deaths in Charlotte County and eight in Collier County remain unconfirmed from the storm. But there is at least one death believed caused by the hurricane in Polk County.
Vice Admiral Peter Gautier, deputy commandant for U.S. Coast Guard operations, said the Coast Guard, alongside state and local search and rescue teams, have saved the lives of 117 people since Ian made landfall on Wednesday.
“Those operations are going to continue for as long as it takes,” he said.
“America’s heart is literally breaking,” Biden said. “I just want the people in Florida to know we see what you’re going through and we’re with you, and we’re going to do everything we can for you.”
Biden said the U.S. “pre-deployed” the largest team of search-and-rescue experts in recent American history.
"There's been really a Herculean effort," Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.
Still, more than a million were still without power, with most of the outages concentrated in the hard-hit areas of Lee, Collier, Charlotte and Sarasota counties.
DeSantis gives hope to residents of Pine Island, cut off from mainland
Stopping at the Lee County village of Matlacha, DeSantis Friday afternoon attempted to give some assurance to residents eager to return to homes on neighboring Pine Island, which was cut off from the mainland by road and bridge damage from Hurricane Ian.
“Look, I’m committed to fixing that, you know, with the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “Obviously, the county can help. We’ve got to provide access. But how quickly can that be done, even with best efforts is unclear.”
Similar destruction is keeping even more residents away from homes on Sanibel Island, not far from where Ian made landfall and where rescue workers have gone door-to-door checking on the safety of those who remained while the Category 4 storm tore through.
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Guthrie, the state's emergency manager, said that getting law enforcement and other officials onto the barrier islands is among the first tasks, to clear debris and gauge the security of still-standing roads and other structures.
“Then, we will work on trying to get you guys back in there,” Guthrie said.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said he’s talked with state officials about getting a ferry that could be used to temporarily move residents and emergency workers onto the barrier islands.
He and DeSantis said that security will be a priority in the wake of the storm.
“We are not going to tolerate, I mean zero tolerance when we say anyone who thinks they’re going to thrive on the residents of this county or state, when we just took a horrific hit, I can guarantee you, that is not going to happen,” said Marceno.
DeSantis chimed in. “I was touring Punta Gorda yesterday and they’ve boarded up all the businesses and there were people who wrote on their plywood, ‘you loot, we shoot,’” the governor said.
“At the end of the day, we are not going to allow lawlessness to take advantage of this situation,” he added.
— John Kennedy, USA Today Network-Florida
Hiding out in an attic in North Port, his face inches from the ceiling
The floodwaters were quickly rising, and all Gary Pall could hear was the torrential rain and relentless wind battering the roof of his North Port home while he lay in his attic, with his face inches from the ceiling, waiting for rescue.
Pall has lived in the community since 2006 with wife Nora and their Chihuahua, Coconut, but floodwaters had never before infiltrated his home.
“It sounded like a freight train was going right by our heads, it was five times louder than it was downstairs because the roof was 3 or 4 inches from our faces when we were laying down facing the roof. We were just feeling the roof to make sure it didn’t fly off at some point.”
Pall said the family took shelter in the attic after water rose so high there was nowhere else for them to climb for cover downstairs, and they called 911 just before they climbed in to ensure someone knew to look for them if rescue ever came.
“I just started seeing water come in through the garage like a wave,” he said. “Then I went out to the living room and it started coming in through the front door. I put some sand bags out there, but there was so much water it made no difference. The house seemed to be filling up so fast that we eventually couldn't find any more high places to go, so we went into the attic.”
'We just don’t want anyone to forget' tiny Pine Island
It took Helen Fox about a half hour to gather her clothing, medicine and water. She and her husband made the decision around lunchtime Tuesday to evacuate their home in Bokeelia on the north end of Pine Island.
Before leaving, she packed away photographs of their children and their own childhood, and other mementos collected over the years, placing them in plastic bins and even her washing machine.
“But the things that I found I was putting in waterproof containers, all the old mementos, old photographs, things from friends that you had accumulated over the years that you kind of take for granted when you live with them, but in an emergency you realize that's your life. That's the story of your life," she said.
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Her voice caught briefly when speaking about them.
“It’s emotional to think about,” said Fox, who is the president of the Greater Pine Island Civic Association. “We were so fortunate compared to so many people.”
Fox still doesn’t know how their house fared.
She worried about those who stayed behind. With roads getting on and off the island being impassable, she wondered how residents would get food, gas and other essentials.
While Pine Island is the largest island on the Gulf Coast, it’s home to a small community of about 10,000 permanent residents. Fox didn’t know how many residents stayed behind, but she knows of three families who rode out the storm. One friend said that they were glad to have stayed, but “would not recommend it to anybody.”
Fox was grateful that DeSantis mentioned Pine Island as well as Sanibel in a recent news conference.
“We just don’t want anyone to forget the numbers of people who are out there,” she said.
— Hannah Morse, The Palm Beach Post
Ian made landfall on South Carolina's coast Friday
Hurricane Ian made landfall Friday on the coast of South Carolina, inundating the region with potentially life-threatening flooding and damaging winds, just days after the storm battered Florida.
Ian hit near Georgetown, South Carolina, about 60 miles north of Charleston, just after 2 p.m. as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. The storm is expected to wreak havoc on South Carolina, Georgia and other states along the East Coast as it moves inland.
Trees have been toppled, roads flooded and over 69,000 households have already lost power in South Carolina, officials said.
Florida senators Rubio, Scott ask for more help
Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Rick Scott sent a joint letter on Friday to the Senate Appropriations Committee chairs to secure funding “provide much needed assistance to Florida.”
“Hurricane Ian will be remembered and studied as one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the United States,” they wrote. “Communities across Florida have been completely destroyed, and lives have been forever changed."
The Senate passed a short-term spending bill on Thursday that includes an additional $18.8 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to respond to Hurricane Ian and future disasters, but more will be needed from Congress because the storm devastated southwest Florida and flooding caused damages throughout much of the state.
— Sergio Bustos, USA Today Network-Florida Enterprise/Politics Editor
A submerged home may hold human remains
Guthrie said that in one situation, whose location he didn’t pinpoint, a Coast Guard swimmer went underwater to enter a submerged home. “He could identify what appeared to be human remains. But we don’t know exactly how many,” Guthrie said.
“We just don’t know that number,” he concluded, noting that 3,000 rescue personnel had already gone door-to-door in some of the worst-damaged areas.
About 20,000 people had filled out a shelter-in-place survey the state had made available online before the storm. More than 10,000 have since responded and said they were safe, DeSantis said Friday, with that number expected to climb as more people turn up at shelters, hotels or friends’ homes.
A feisty 95-year-old rescued from Sanibel Island: "It was hell"
Yolande Welch — 95, feisty, with a bandaged leg and an injured shoulder — sat at the Port Sanibel marina with a Sanibel firefighter’s hand on her shoulder.
He asked her if she needed an ambulance. She demurred. Firefighters and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation officers had rescued her from Sanibel earlier in the day after a harrowing struggle against the storm, and she had plenty to say about it.
“It was hell,” Welch said. “I’ve been through five hurricanes, and this is the worst one."
Welch was one of the hundreds of Sanibel residents who took their chances with Hurricane Ian.
On Thursday evening, Sanibel officials said that 200 households reported staying on the island during the storm. Two people were confirmed dead, 14 medically evacuated and another 40 rescued without injury on Thursday.
As Ian’s eye passed over the island on Wednesday afternoon, Welch heard a loud crash from her living room. One of her glass pane doors had snapped off its track, and was threatening to break entirely, she said.
“If you can believe this, I stood and held that door so it wouldn’t blow out. For four and half hours,” Welch said. “The wind was just ghastly, the strength of that wind.”
Welch hurt her shoulder with the effort, but stuck it out through the night. On Thursday, a firefighter drove up to her house in a two-seat buggy and drove her to a dock where a rescue boat waited.
Reporters from the USA Today Network-Florida, including the Fort Myers News-Press, Naples Daily News, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Palm Beach Post, Tallahassee Democrat contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Hurricane Ian: Residents share stories of survival, gratitude, regret
