'We're not going to stop:' Ian's destruction of Pine Island brings out the best in residents

When Hurricane Ian rammed into the southwest coast of Florida, the barrier islands off Fort Myers and Cape Coral — Pine Island, Captiva and Sanibel — took the brunt of the damage. The 155-mile-an-hour winds peeled roofs off homes and snapped telephone poles in half.

The storm surge did the rest of the damage. It lifted boats on their crests, carrying them out of their docks and dropping them wherever it felt like when it retreated. It ripped toilets out of tile floors, sucked doors out of their frames, busted through walls and windows and in its wake, turned everything it had touched to trash, thanks to the sewage it had accumulated as it swirled over and through the ground.

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In the wake of the category 4 storm, with the bridge to Matlacha and Pine Island out, rumors abounded about the state of Pine Island. Many eschewed evacuation, opting to stay with their homes and in their community instead. While the hurricane itself did terrible damage to structures on the island, the outpouring of support from neighbors on the island has been heartwarming.

Pine Islanders have lent trucks to evacuation efforts, spent days clearing the roads, and offered food and shelter to anyone on the island in need of help after Hurricane Ian. They've spent their own time and money helping their neighbors, and they say they won't stop until everyone is secure.

Reporters and photographers with The News-Press / Naples Daily News hitched rides out to Pine Island on the back of jet skis run by Chris Gerber and his girlfriend Linda Szalkowski, a former enlisted petty officer with the Navy.

When asked if he was part of the Cajun Navy — jokingly — Gerber demurred.

“These are just some good old boys — and girls — trying to help others,” he said.

'It just didn't stop'

Pine Island is about 40 square miles, and home to just about 8,500 people, according to the census. About half of those residents are age 65 and older; many don't even have cars, preferring instead to travel by golf cart.

The potential for loss to the island was high.

The ride out was bumpy and nervy. Gerber wasn’t sure what he’d find on Pine Island, although he’d been there before. He was hoping to bring water to people who needed it, and offer rides back on his Jet Skis to anyone else who might want to return to the mainland, where power is slowly coming back on and water is running, albeit with a boil notice.

He pointed out damage along the way: a missing roof, a collapsed sea wall, a sailboat called Journey with the words NOT ABANDONED graffitied in black spray paint on the side. But at Matlacha, he just cut the boat and idled. All that remains of the Driftwood Inn is the back of the building. The pier and the front has collapsed, torn away by the wind and done in by the storm surge.

“I thought the Driftwood would have been gone long before this,” Gerber mused.

A favorite watering hole, Bert’s, is gone as well, and Island Pho, a Vietnamese soup spot that Gerber loved, is in sorry shape.

The road just before the bridge to Pine Island has washed out. There’s nothing but sewage-y, particle-filled water there now. That, and a makeshift bridge someone had cleverly constructed out of a ladder and plywood.

On Pine Island, Gerber introduced reporters to his friend, Jason Swanson. Swanson had a project boat that Swanson had tied up in the canal before the storm. Now, it’s sitting perpendicular to the canal in his front yard, the nose pointing at its former berth. Swanson said he watched his boat rise right out of the water and slide its way into his front yard.

"It got a foot over the seawall, and once it got a foot over the seawall, it just came in really fast," Swanson said. "I just hoped it didn't keep going!"

Pine Islander Lynn Berriter lives in Bokeelia with her husband. Most people evacuated from her neighborhood, but she didn't, and although living through the hurricane was terrifying, overall, she thought it may have been the right move.

"I think if we left our house it would have been trashed," she said. "We had some breaches. We had to hold the doors shut tight, and I think those would have blown if we had left. But the house has been there for 40 years. It survived Charley and it's got good roots."

She thought they might die while the storm pounded the house. "It was bad," she whispered. "And it went on and on and on and on. Just never stopped.

"It just didn't stop."

Traveling south on Stringfellow Road in St. James City from Swanson's home, it became clear why the island had no power. The poles carrying powerlines had snapped in half, some 10 feet up, some 20. The tops, with their wires connecting them, lay in the road, like an uneven and oddly spaced rope ladder.

Down Orchid Run, debris clogged the roads and the yards. In Cherry Estates, houses had been smashed to bits. But the residents weren't about to give up on their island.

Help at every turn

Miami-Dade Fire Service Task Force 1 were out and about. They evacuated flooded-out residents and ferried them to and from the drop site where the U.S. Army would load them onto a Chinook and carry them to safety. So, too, were the U.S. Army, Lee County Sheriff’s deputies, and every local who wanted to help.

Kari Peters, her fiancé Brian Blade and four of their children rode out Hurricane Ian in Blade’s reinforced home on Manatee Drive in St. James City.

“I’ve lived in Southwest Florida all my life and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Peters, 38, who was born in Estero. “It was horrifying.”

Peters said the last time she was able to peek out the front door, she saw water up to the windows of her car in the driveway.

“That was the last time I opened the door,” she said.

The family headed upstairs, fearing the water would enter the ground floor. It never did.

“We are blessed,” she said. “Now we’re just trying to find gas and water and a way off the island because we’re stranded here. It kind of feels like a game of Mission Impossible trying to get help.”

Bad time for truck to break down

Jerry Nelson was headed out of the St. James City Mobile Home Park with his mother Wednesday when his truck broke down. They were two of four people to shelter during Hurricane Ian at the Off the Charts Inn & Out Land Resort on Sanibel Boulevard.

He said the water started rising over the seawall as the eye of the storm arrived.

“I thought we were through the worst of it,” he said. “But it got twice as bad on the back end.”

Nelson said the Inn held up well during the storm, aside from all its first-floor rooms being filled with water. His home, however, wasn’t as fortunate.

“When the water came in, everything in the kitchen went to the back of the house and then when it went out everything went back to the kitchen,” he said. “The whole thing just collapsed.”

Nelson, who’s lived on Pine Island for 10 years, said he’s got enough food and water to stay at the hotel for about three more days. He’s not sure what he’ll do after that.

Helicopters were a constant presence in the skies Friday above St. James City. Some are arriving to transport residents off the island; others to survey its remaining infrastructure.

“That’s frustrating a lot of local people because they see a helicopter, they want to go but that might not be their mission,” said Rick Gatt, who arrived Friday morning from the Tampa area as part of the Cajun Navy, a volunteer disaster relief group.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Gatt said they’ve been ferrying injured residents in need of higher-level medical care off the island by boat. Among them was a woman in her 70s with a serious wrist fracture and an elderly  man with chronic pulmonary disease who was down to his one remaining inhaler.

“We’re helping with the people that wouldn’t be able to tolerate a ride on a military helicopter,” he said.

Hurricane denial of some residents frustrates emergency workers

But some Pine Islanders can be a stubborn lot, confident they can weather any storm life throws at them, including a Category 4 hurricane. Dr. Benjamin Abo, the medical director for the Pine Island Fire Department who is helping to coordinate evacuation efforts, said there’s still a lot of denial among residents, especially older ones, about the necessity of vacating the island as soon as possible.

“There’s not going to be power out here for a long,” he said. “Maybe water. But people need to go.”

Abo said the destruction he’s seen is reminiscent of both Irma’s impact on the Keys in 2017 and Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that decimated the Bahamas in 2019.

“It’s going to take a while for us to rebuild,” Abo said. “We will, but it’s going to take a long time. It’s kind of gut-wrenching to see what’s happened to one of my islands.”

Evacuations

One 86-year-old woman, who insisted her name not be published, said she rode out of Hurricane Ian with only her 11-year-old dog, a Boykin spaniel, by her side, the only resident on her street not to depart before the storm’s arrival. Deputies found her trying to clean the mud off her floors; she said the water got about 4 feet high inside her house before receding. They convinced her to come to the Monroe Canal Marina, which is functioning as a staging area for residents being evacuated.

But after three hours of waiting she was ready to gp home, to continue tidying up the only place she said she and her dog had to go.

“They keep asking what’s wrong with me,” she said. “There ain’t nothing wrong with me. Except I’m old and cranky, that’s about the only thing.”

At 2:30 p.m. Friday, an Army Chinook helicopter, its deafening tandem rotors erasing every other sound of an island pleading for help, touched down on a concrete landing pad surrounded by crumpled native vegetation. Minutes later, a mini-bus carrying evacuees rumbled down the dirt road. One by one they exited, tugging roller suitcases, holding their children’s hands, carrying pet crates. Included among them was that defiant octogenarian, tougher than a mangrove, escorted by Abo, who led her dog by its leash, onto the Chinook and into an uncertain future.

According to Tony Herrera, a lieutenant with the Miami-Dade Fire Service Task Force 1, the rescuers had not yet found bodies of residents. Residents said they believed a number of people had died, but had not yet been discovered.

"We haven't seen anything so far," Herrera said. "What we've seen is we're starting to transport people out, but a lot of people want to stay."

'So powerful'

Paul Dodge owns a lawncare service. He had lent his personal truck to the rescue operation, and was driving up and down roads checking on his customers’ homes.

He used to do lawn care in Cape Coral, he said, but when gas hit $5 a gallon, he gave that up. The empty spots were snapped up by Pine Island residents, he said.

Dodge carried his handgun with him, holstered on his right hip where he could easily reach it, in case he ran into trouble while out on the road.

There were unsubstantiated rumors going around of looters, and someone said they had found squatters in their neighbor's home who had pulled a gun on them when they tried to get them out. Better safe than sorry, was the general consensus among Islanders.

As Dodge went from house to house, he knew almost everyone he saw. One man, he said, had spent days clearing any debris off the road that could puncture tires. He drove by one house that had debris all over the front and side yard, and wondered if the resident had gotten his 1957 truck out before Ian made a mess of everything.

And Dodge was far from the only person working to help his neighbors.

The Low Key Tiki on Stringfellow had become a gathering spot. Owner Johnny Smith was grilling up food and serving beers to the community, trying to make sure everyone was fed and watered. People used it as a stopping point, hitching and giving rides to and from neighbors and strangers – and reporters – alike.

Islander Shaun Finley, who works at Low Key Tiki, shared that Smith had offered shelter to him and others during the storm. All told, 14 stayed in Smith’s home, plus Finley’s dogs.

Smith’s home is on stilts, which allows it to weather the storm better, but makes it sway with the winds. When the eye came through, Finley said, the house was swaying so viciously he went out into the hallway and braced himself on the walls.

"You never thought something could be so powerful," Finley said. When the storm surge came though, that took them by surprise. "It was like something from a horror movie."

But, he said, they're alive. And they're going to keep going, and offer help to anyone who needs it.

One canal west of the Low Key Tiki is Cherry Estates, a mobile home community that was hit hard by Ian. The houses had been flooded and battered by winds. People who had returned said their particle floors were rotting out already, deteriorating into bits from the soaking they'd gotten. Houses were missing doors, awnings, roofs and even sides; wires were hanging so low you couldn't even access some streets.

If you studied the wreckage piled in the streets you could sometimes identify which house down the block a certain bit of debris had originally belonged to.

Tom and Vivian Bridges live in Cherry Estates, in a neat gray double-wide with blue shutters. Vivian, who has no legs, gets around exclusively by wheelchair. They evacuated to their church, the First Baptist Church of St. James City, and spent two nights there to avoid staying in their double-wide.

"The wind and the water destroyed that building," Vivian said. The water was chest-height on Tom, who stands about 6 feet tall.

"She has no legs to get up at all, and I had her floating on trash. Doors that blew off, and panels that blew off."

Eventually, Tom found a baby mattress from a crib and placed that on top of the trash; Vivian was able to sleep on that. They have no phones, no power, no internet. Just a solar-powered radio. But still, the Bridges kept on smiling. How were they so positive?

"Because we live in Florida," Tom exclaimed, gesturing wide with his long arms.

"There's no place else we'd want to live," added Vivian. "We just didn't like this guy so much."

Hours later, as Gerber and Szalkowski chauffeured The News-Press / Naples Daily News staff back over to Cape, the tide had risen. Dead fish – mullet, grouper – littered the canals. The water swirled around the jet skis, dark brown particles of human waste made clouds in the water. The air smelled faintly of poop.

Despite the toll, Gerber and Szalkowski were happy. They'd gotten to help a friend and to get the word out about the conditions on Pine Island.

They headed home, and made plans to head out the following day.

Kate Cimini is an investigative journalist covering Florida. Share your story at (239) 207-9369 or email kcimini@gannett.com. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Ian's Pine Island damage brings out the best in residents