FORT MYERS, Fla. – Headlights brighten the dusty roads under the soft complexion of pre-dawn light. With the landscape in ruins, it’s a recent day in Southwest Florida.
People operating heavy machines move vessels, structures and private belongings to the perimeters of roads. Survivors in these communities who evacuated also return to their homes destroyed and memories washed away by Hurricane Ian’s record storm surge.
Mike Mauger lost his home within the hurricane and doesn’t know where to go from here.
“Hopefully, now we have insurance, some type of insurance. Based on the insurance people, they were denying us instantly,” he shrugged. “I don’t understand how that works. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Standing on their driveway, Mauger and his better half look upon their belongings in horror. The distraught look on their faces is excruciating because the inside their home has been stripped already. Only the frame now stands with wood and concrete.
Up and down their block, all of the homes now appear like this. All of the while, the American Red Cross is on the bottom attempting to assist.
“Looking around here without delay, there may be nothing more clear that folks are going to need assistance for a very long time,” said Lori Arnold, a Red Cross spokeswoman.
Residents are roaming their communities, attempting to salvage what they will. The shock is starting to wear off and the sadness throughout is taking hold.
“It’s catastrophic, and I do know that if we’re feeling this manner, we usually are not the one ones,” Fort Myers Beach resident Sheena Brook Stockton said.
She and her wife sheltered of their home that was partially destroyed within the storm. Clutched with their belongings of their arms, the couple walked off the island to safety within the immediate aftermath – each thankful to be alive.
“So many individuals have given us so much to assist us survive … just beach residents taking good care of beach residents. I feel it’s that support that’s keeping us going, keeping us alive,” Brook Stockton said.
With search and rescue operations still ongoing on the barrier islands, many residents can’t get back to what’s left of their homes and belongings.
And because the long days and nights proceed, the suffering infiltrates the living.
“The vastness of how much this hurricane has affected everybody alike. Disasters don’t discriminate,” Arnold said.
Ian was indeed an unbiased and catastrophic storm, washing ashore feelings of tension, stress and worry about what the following steps shall be for the hundreds of thousands of survivors in its wake.
FORT MYERS, Fla. – Headlights brighten the dusty roads under the soft complexion of pre-dawn light. With the landscape in ruins, it’s a recent day in Southwest Florida.
People operating heavy machines move vessels, structures and private belongings to the perimeters of roads. Survivors in these communities who evacuated also return to their homes destroyed and memories washed away by Hurricane Ian’s record storm surge.
Mike Mauger lost his home within the hurricane and doesn’t know where to go from here.
“Hopefully, now we have insurance, some type of insurance. Based on the insurance people, they were denying us instantly,” he shrugged. “I don’t understand how that works. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Standing on their driveway, Mauger and his better half look upon their belongings in horror. The distraught look on their faces is excruciating because the inside their home has been stripped already. Only the frame now stands with wood and concrete.
Up and down their block, all of the homes now appear like this. All of the while, the American Red Cross is on the bottom attempting to assist.
“Looking around here without delay, there may be nothing more clear that folks are going to need assistance for a very long time,” said Lori Arnold, a Red Cross spokeswoman.
Residents are roaming their communities, attempting to salvage what they will. The shock is starting to wear off and the sadness throughout is taking hold.
“It’s catastrophic, and I do know that if we’re feeling this manner, we usually are not the one ones,” Fort Myers Beach resident Sheena Brook Stockton said.
She and her wife sheltered of their home that was partially destroyed within the storm. Clutched with their belongings of their arms, the couple walked off the island to safety within the immediate aftermath – each thankful to be alive.
“So many individuals have given us so much to assist us survive … just beach residents taking good care of beach residents. I feel it’s that support that’s keeping us going, keeping us alive,” Brook Stockton said.
With search and rescue operations still ongoing on the barrier islands, many residents can’t get back to what’s left of their homes and belongings.
And because the long days and nights proceed, the suffering infiltrates the living.
“The vastness of how much this hurricane has affected everybody alike. Disasters don’t discriminate,” Arnold said.
Ian was indeed an unbiased and catastrophic storm, washing ashore feelings of tension, stress and worry about what the following steps shall be for the hundreds of thousands of survivors in its wake.
