Haunting Clips of Absolute Devastation in Ft. Myers, Sanibel

By
M Dowling
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Absolute Devastation!

Much of Ft. Myers beach is gone and needs to be rebuilt. In Sanibel, the causeway is gone, and the way in now is by plane or boat.

Hurricane Ian is a hurricane again. It’s a Cat 1, and heading for Georgia and the Carolinas.

The sheriff of Lee County, Florida, which encompasses Fort Myers, which was hit by Hurricane Ian on Wednesday, estimated Thursday that deaths resulting from the hurricane could number in the hundreds but later clarified that he could only confirm around five fatalities.

Winds up to 155 mph blasted the Florida coastline as Ian was rated a Category 4 hurricane.

Gov. De Santis warned of catastrophic floods two days before. After the flood, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said officials were assessing damage that will take years to rebuild, calling Ian “a 500-year flood event.” The storm was one of the most powerful storms on record to hit the U.S.

Resident Kevin Ott had planned to ride out Hurricane Ian in his Fort Myers home but ended up on a dangerous rescue mission to save his family—and 13 others—from the strongest storm to slam the coast in decades.

“The water, that was unbelievable,” Ott told The Daily Beast. “That water came on so quick. We were scrambling, trying [as] fast [as] we can get back to [Dineen], and it was just—within an hour, half an hour, or less, it was there. And these people were freaking out on top of the roofs, the people who were in the second stories, they were sitting there waving us down.”

About 2.6 million people are without power.

Haunting clips below of Ft. Myers and Sanibel.

Sanibel and Captiva

CBS Miami reported that Hurricane Ian destroyed a major chunk of the Sanibel Causeway when it slammed into Florida’s west coast Wednesday.

Two portions of the ramp to both bridges to the islands of Sanibel and Captiva washed away, and a stretch of roadway crossed an island in the middle of the causeway. The causeway is the only way for vehicles to enter or leave the islands.

“Sanibel is destruction,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference Thursday, adding that the island “got hit with really biblical storm surge,” DeSantis said evacuation efforts were ongoing. Still, many residents had left before the storm hit.

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