Residents forced out by Hurricane Ian were allowed to return to Fort Myers Beach over the weekend — but the complicated process of figuring out what insurance might cover has just begun.
“I don’t really think a lot of this is covered. And that’s, like, our biggest concern and fear,” said Robby Podgorski, who was assessing the damage to his Fort Myers business, the Green Cup Cafe.
Like so many there, he had insurance for wind damage — but not flood damage.
“Neither me nor my landlord, nor a majority of the homeowners in my community had flood insurance,” he said. “Since we’re in a historic building in technically a FEMA flood zone, our insurance would be more than our mortgage or our rent.”
Only 18% of Florida homes have flood insurance, according to Insurance Information Institute. Florida homeowners already pay the highest premiums — nearly three times the national average — for property insurance, Insurance Information Institute says.
Florida state Sen. Jeff Brandes says one problem is that a whopping 80% of property insurance lawsuits come from Florida, despite only representing 8% of the nation’s insurance claims. It’s driving insurers out or into bankruptcy, he said.
“The trial attorneys are making billions of dollars in Florida by suing property insurers,” Brandes said. “And so they’re heavily lobbying the legislature to just do nothing for another year, and so to continue to kick the can down the road. Unfortunately in Florida, we’re out of road.”
He says on top of recent rate hikes, homeowners across the state can expect insurance rate increases anywhere from 20% to 40% after Hurricane Ian.
Florida officials say insurance companies have already paid more than $207 million in claims from the storm.
Life in Taiwan with China flexing its military might; Witnessing the aftermath of Hurricane Ian; Southern Baptist Convention President Bart Barber speaks with Anderson Cooper.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — An army of 42,000 utility workers has restored electricity to more than 2.5 million businesses and homes in Florida since Hurricane Ian’s onslaught, and Brenda Palmer’s place is among them. By the government’s count, she and her husband Ralph are part of a success story.
Yet turning on the lights in a wrecked mobile home that’s likely beyond repair and reeks of dried river mud and mold isn’t much solace to people who lost a lifetime of work in a few hours of wind, rain and rising seawater. Sorting through soggy old photos of her kids in the shaded ruins of her carport, Palmer couldn’t help but cry.
“Everybody says, ’You can’t save everything, mom,’” she said. “You know, it’s my life. It’s MY life. It’s gone.”
With the major search for victims over and a large swath of Florida’s southwest coast settling in for the long slog of recovering from its first direct hit from a major hurricane in a century, residents are bracing for what will be months, if not years, of work. Mourning lost heirlooms will be hard; so will fights with insurance companies and decisions about what to do next.
Around the corner from the Palmers in Coach Light Manor, a retirement community of 179 mobile homes that was flooded by two creeks and a canal, a sad realization hit Susan Colby sometime between the first time she saw her soggy home after Ian and Sunday, when she was picking through its remains.
“I’m 86 years old and I’m homeless,” she said. “It’s just crazy. I mean, never in my life did I dream that I wouldn’t have a home. But it’s gone.”
Officials have blamed more than 100 deaths, most of them in southwest Florida, on Ian, a powerful Category 4 storm with 155 mph (249 kph) winds. It was the third-deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century behind Hurricane Katrina, which left about 1,400 people dead, and Hurricane Sandy, which killed 233 despite weakening to a tropical storm just before landfall.
While Gov. Ron DeSantis has heaped lavish praise on his administration for the early phases of the recovery, including getting running water and lights back on and erecting a temporary bridge to Pine Island, much more remains to be done. There are still mountains of debris to remove; it’s hard to find a road that isn’t lined with waterlogged carpet, ruined furniture, moldy mattresses and pieces of homes.
On the road to Estero Island, scene of the worst damage to Fort Myers Beach, workers are using heavy machines with huge grapples to snatch debris out of swampy areas and deposit it into trucks. Boats of all sizes, from dinghies to huge shrimpers and charter fishing vessels, block roads and sit atop buildings.
DeSantis said at least some of the roadmap for the coming months in southwest Florida may come from the Florida Panhandle, where Category 5 Hurricane Michael wiped out Mexico Beach and much of Panama City in 2018. Panama City leaders will be brought in to offer advice on the cleanup, DeSantis told a weekend news conference.
“They’re going to come down on the ground, they’re going to inspect, and then they’ve going to offer some advice to the local officials here in Lee County, Fort Myers Beach and other places,” DeSantis said. “You can do what you want, you don’t have to accept their advice. But I tell you that was a major, major effort.”
In a region full of retirees, many of whom moved South to get away from the chill of Northern winters, Luther Marth worries that it might be more difficult for some to recover from the psychological effects of Ian than the physical destruction. Two men in their 70s already have taken their own lives after seeing the destruction, officials said.
Fort Myers was sideswiped by Hurricane Irma in 2017, but Marth said that storm was nothing like Ian, and the emotional toll will be greater, especially for older folks.
“I’m 88 years old. People my age struggle,” said Marth, who counts himself and his wife Jacqueline among the lucky despite losing a car and thousands of dollars worth of fishing gear, tools and more when their garage filled with more than 5 feet (1.52 meters) of water.
“If you got wiped out financially you don’t want to start over again, you don’t have the will to start again,” Marth said. “So those are the people my heart breaks for.”
FORT MYERS, Fla. — With her home gone and all her belongings trashed by Hurricane Ian, Alice Pujols wept as she picked through soggy clothes, toys and overturned furniture piled head-high outside a stranger’s house, looking to salvage something — anything — for her four children and herself.
“I’m trying to make it to the next day,” she said. “That’s all I can do. It’s really depressing. It really is.”
For those who lost everything to a natural disaster and even those spared, the anguish can be crushing to return home to find so much gone. Grief can run the gamut from frequent tears to utter despair. Two men in their 70s even took their own lives after viewing their losses, said the medical examiner in Lee County, where Ian first made landfall in southwestern Florida.
The emotional toll in the days, weeks and months after a hurricane, flood or wildfire can be crippling. More pressing needs for food, shelter and clothing often take priority to seeking counseling, which is in short supply even in good times.
“When someone’s in a state of trauma that so many are in, they don’t know where to begin,” said Beth Hatch, CEO of the Collier County, Florida, branch of the National Alliance of Mental Illness. “They need that hand-holding and they need to know that there’s so many people here to help them.”
Hurricane Ian hammered Florida with such ferocity that it wiped out whole neighborhoods, tossed boats onto highways, swept away beaches and swamped homes in roof-deep waters.
With sustained winds of 150 mph (240 kph), it was one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit southwest Florida. It later cut a watery and wind-battered swath across the Florida peninsula before turning out to sea to regain strength and pummel South Carolina.
It killed more than 100 people, the majority of victims in Florida, making it the third-deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century. Even a week after it passed through, officials warned that more victims could yet be found as they continued to inspect the damage. The storm knocked out power to 2.6 million and caused billions of dollars in damage.
Research has shown that between a third and half of those who survive a disaster develop some type of mental distress, said Jennifer Horney, an epidemiology professor at the University of Delaware who studies natural disaster impacts on public health.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety rise along with substance abuse. Those with existing mental disorders are at greater risk of having those conditions exacerbated by the trauma.
A variety of help is available as additional resources are sent to the area.
The state of Florida was setting up support centers and the federal government has a 24-hour disaster distress helpline to provide counseling and crisis support. Hatch’s organization was going to some homes in hard-hit areas to check on clients with mental illness.
The vast majority of people, though, were still assessing damage, trying to retrieve and dry out possessions worth keeping and drag what couldn’t be saved to growing trash heaps by the side of the road.
On Pine Island, just off the Florida mainland where Ian first struck, an emotional Alan Bickford said he was trying to take a longer view because what lay before him was bleak: the floors of his home were coated in stinky muck and his yard was littered with framed photos, furniture and other items he’d hauled outside.
“It’s like a death of a loved one. The pain just comes and goes,” he said. “There’s times when there are these little glimmers or slivers of hope. And then everything falls apart.”
Riding out a deadly storm amid screaming winds, pounding waves and rising waters, or escaping as danger closes in is terrifying and traumatic. Living out of a duffel bag or suitcase in an evacuation center is disruptive, stressful and depressing. Returning to a flood-ravaged home that needs to be gutted to prevent mold from taking hold or, worse, reduced to splinters and scrap metal and scattered like confetti is heartbreaking.
Mao Lin walked an hour Thursday to reach the plot of land where she had lived on Fort Myers Beach, which looked like a blast zone. She was distressed to find it gone.
“The whole street — nothing’s left,” she said. “We don’t have a home. We don’t have a car. We don’t have anything. We have nothing left.”
In recent days, the number of calls have doubled at Hatch’s organization as people recognize they cannot rebuild their lives — and overcome trauma — alone.
“The needs are going to change over time,” Hatch said. “Some people have lost everything, maybe the walls of their home may be still standing, but they’re uninhabitable.”
Cleaning up the mess of a damaged home or finding a new one in the wake of a catastrophe gives way to the longer term challenges of navigating the maze of bureaucracy for financial assistance, securing permits for rebuilding or fighting insurance companies over reimbursements.
Horney studied suicide rates in counties that experienced a disaster between 2003-2015. She and her colleagues found suicides increased 23% when comparing the three-year period preceding a disaster to the three years after an event, according to the study published in The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention.
She said the Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 suicides of men in their 70s was not typical so soon after a catastrophic event.
“It’s not usually an immediate, post-disaster thing,” Horney said. “It’s really these longer-term mental health problems that have either been exacerbated by or caused by the disaster that then over time tend to lead to more severe outcomes like suicide.”
In the aftermath of a disaster, communities pull together to recover and rebuild. Rescuers, relief workers and nonprofit organizations provide food, funding and other help, including counseling. But attention eventually fades and the money dries up. Emergency funds for mental health sometimes expire in as soon as two months and last no longer than a year.
With disasters becoming more frequent and more severe due to climate change, there could be a cumulative effect on mental health, Horney said. She said her study calls for more funding to fix the damage that is felt but can’t be seen.
Most of the emotional impacts of a disaster are short-lived but they could be worsened if followed by another cataclysmic event.
“If it was usual that symptoms would resolve in six months to a year, but then there’s another hurricane or another wildfire, then you’re in this cycle of intensifying mental health impacts,” Horney said. “The research is definitely clear that the more disasters you’re exposed to, the stronger the impacts on mental health.”
Joe Kuczko hunkered down with his parents as their Pine Island mobile home was battered by the storm. Kuczko got a gash in his foot that he stitched himself after a piece of the roof blew off.
Pieces of mangled metal lay on the ground Thursday along with containers full of possessions and clothes hung to dry as Kuczko, shirtless and with a sunburn on his back, strung up a tarp to keep the rain out of what remained of the home.
“I lost the first 30 years of my life,” he said. “Every time I hear the wind blow and a piece of aluminum shift, it’s like PTSD.”
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Melley reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press journalist Robert Bumsted contributed to this story from Pine Island, Florida.
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The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available for those in distress by dialing 988 or 1-800-273-8255.
It’s been 11 days since Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 monster of a storm, cut across central Florida. Even in a state that’s no stranger to hurricanes, the destruction in the wake of Ian is staggering: more than 100 deaths, most by drowning; communities in tatters; the price tag for recovery estimated at more than $100 billion. We went to ground zero, on Florida’s southwest coast where Ian first roared ashore and where the hurricane’s fury was most severe.
As Hurricane Ian’s violence bore down on Sanibel Island, the Sprecher Family fled with little more than the clothes on their backs. This past Wednesday, one week after the tempest laid waste to the island, the family went back to see what was left of the place they had called home for almost 20 years.
Milissa Sprecher: Where are we? I can’t even tell.
Ian severed the causeway that connects Sanibel to the mainland, so the Sprechers returned by boat.
Milissa Sprecher: You wouldn’t even know this is home.
John and Milissa Sprecher
We were invited to go home with them to see the damage done when the Category 4 hurricane plowed into Florida. John Sprecher told us, the destruction was overwhelming.
John Sprecher: This place looks like it’s been bombed out. And I, you know, I remember our kids playing in the sand when they were a couple years old.
Milissa Sprecher told us she had trouble getting her bearings.
Milissa Sprecher: There’s no bridge, there’s no ferry right now, there’s nowhere to stay, there’s no running water, there’s no electricity, there’s no air conditioning, there’s nothing. Everybody on this island at this moment is homeless.
Their house is just a block from the beach, usually a few minute walk they said, but not this day. The path was covered with thick, tacky mud.
Milissa Sprecher: Watch the mud, ’cause you’re gonna– it’s very slick.
6,500 people live on Sanibel. The place the sprechers described as a tropical paradise now is a debris field. Cars tossed like toys by the storm surge, it stripped the asphalt off their road.
Bill Whitaker: This was paved?
Milissa Sprecher: This was paved.
As they approached the house, the scene was surreal – a beautiful Florida day, the kind that drew John and Milissa here from Wisconsin years ago, while the home and life they built lay battered under the sun.
Milissa Sprecher: I’m shocked.
They had held pool parties in the yard, celebrated birthdays and graduations in these rooms. Now with the roof gone, exposing the accumulations of a lifetime to the elements, they are salvaging what memories they can take on a small boat.
The Sprecher family home
John Sprecher: Grandma and grandpa photos.
Milissa Sprecher: Yeah, grandma and grandpa photos. To be able to have photos and things that the kids have made and be able to take ’em, that’s huge.
Bill Whitaker: Yeah.
Milissa Sprecher: I’m floored that we have anything, anything.
Bill Whitaker: Have you been in touch with your insurance?
Milissa Sprecher: We have, yeah.
Bill Whitaker: Will you be able to build back what you lost?
Milissa Sprecher: I don’t know that, I don’t know.
John Sprecher: We don’t even know if we want to honestly.
Bill Whitaker: Really?
Milissa Sprecher: I would think a lotta people will be leaving this.
Bill Whitaker: Are the phones ringing off the hook?
Brian Chapman: Monday morning, we were getting about 15– 15 calls a minute.
Brian Chapman
Brian Chapman owns chapman insurance group, one of the largest independent insurance agencies in southwest florida, with about 30,000 customers, many who live on sanibel island and in hard-hit fort myers. Seven of his employees lost homes; his offices suffered water damage and lost power.
Bill Whitaker: With this hurricane, you had winds gusting up to 150 miles an hour. You had a massive storm surge. How do those two arms of this hurricane impact the reimbursements that your homeowners are gonna get?
Brian Chapman: That’s where it gets a little complicated because you have two policies, one for flood and one for wind.
Bill Whitaker: Why is that so complicated?
Brian Chapman: Well, did the wind damage happen first or the water rise? And was there wind damage before it flooded? And it’s hard to know the answer to that question.
And just 18% of Florida homeowners have flood insurance.
Bill Whitaker: So why so few?
Brian Chapman: Because it’s expensive. But not as expensive as what just happened.
Chapman says he fears Ian will only exacerbate a persistent problem in Florida’s insurance market. Eighty percent of all homeowners’ insurance lawsuits in the country are filed here. Most big insurers have scaled way back, small insurers are being squeezed. Six went out of business just this year.
Bill Whitaker: What has all of this done to premiums?
Brian Chapman: Double-digit, triple-digit rate increases in the last 24 months.
Brian Chapman: My policy was personally $3,500, then $7,000, and now $10,000. And that’s not including the flood insurance.
Bill Whitaker: Who can afford that?
Brian Chapman: It’s not affordable, it’s not sustainable.
Bill Whitaker: We were on Sanibel Island yesterday and the destruction is widespread. If you’re out there what hope do you have to recover from this?
Brian Chapman: It’s gonna be a long road to recovery. The ones that forgoed insurance, I’m certain that there will be some that will sell their real estate or their land.
Damage from Hurricane Ian
All of this was wrought by a hurricane that rapidly spun itself into an electrified killer. Energized by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Ian took just two days to grow from a Category 1 to a Category 4 storm, packing 150 mile per hour winds and stirring up a storm surge that drowned coastal communities in 12 feet of water. That one-two punch was compounded by catastrophic rains. The storm dumped more than 20 inches over central Florida, swelling rivers and flooding neighborhoods in a swath that stretched across the state.
Bill Whitaker: You knew this was gonna be a monster?
Bobby Quinn: I did.
As Ian approached, Tampa-native Bobby Quinn, a former Air Force weather forecaster, private pilot, and tech company founder, wanted to help, so he drove south into the heart of the hurricane.
Bobby Quinn: Kinda hard to uh–to leave this spot…
And got more than he’d bargained for.
Bobby Quinn
Bobby Quinn: There was no place to go. There were trees flying by when I was sitting in the truck and wind that would have flipped my truck if I had moved out from behind that wall. I tried at one point and the wheels came off the ground.
After 13 harrowing hours, he started to put his talents to work. Quinn runs a Tampa-based tech start-up called Paypixl, that crowd-sources drone imagery and organizes it on an app. When Ian hit, he repurposed his site so evacuees could view images of their homes and assess the damage, free-of-charge.
Bobby Quinn: You see the debris field, you see the destruction in the back. Now you can turn off the satellite imagery and see the pre-event. This is what it looked like before the storm.
Bill Whitaker: How about that?
Bobby Quinn: And if we add in our street level imagery, somebody can click in and see what that house looks like–
Bill Whitaker: Oh, wow.
Bobby Quinn: –from the front after the storm.
Bill Whitaker: So you’ve got the whole event. Before, after, ground level.
Bobby Quinn: That’s correct.
After posting some of his work on social media – he was inundated with requests. More than 700 came from a densely populated, spiraling development 35 miles north of Sanibel called Rotonda West.
Bobby Quinn: This is Rotonda West. This is the neighborhood. And the pink dots that you see are each individual image that was taken in the neighborhood.
To build his database, Quinn incorporated satellite images with ground level pictures he took driving street by street.
Bill Whitaker: So that– that huge circle that we saw, you were going down every cul-de-sac, going up and down, getting pictures on both sides of the street?
Bobby Quinn: Every road. Every house.
Bill Whitaker: How long did that take you?
Bobby Quinn: It took me nine hours. 117 miles.
Bill Whitaker: And how many pictures did you end up with?
Bobby Quinn: Just over 8,000.
He filmed inside some houses.
Quinn’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed, he told us he’s been contacted by an insurance company and Florida’s emergency operations center, seeking his data.
Bill Whitaker: Why’d you do this?
Bobby Quinn: If you’ve ever felt hopelessness or despair or the anxiety that comes with the unknown, you know it’s a terrible feeling. We know that we can use technology in a way that really hasn’t been used before to get to the right audience, to get to the loved ones and family members. We want to quell that anxiety for them.
Bill Whitaker and Syd Kitson
A prescription for that may lie 12 miles northeast of hard-hit Fort Myers. Babcock Ranch is the brainchild of eco-conscious developer and former professional football player, Syd Kitson.
Syd Kitson: So when you look at this building, this just went through a Cat-4 hurricane.
Kitson and his partners purchased 91,000 acres in 2006 — bigger than Manhattan — with a dream to build America’s first environmentally friendly, hurricane-proof, fully sustainable small town.
Syd Kitson: We are the first solar-powered town in America. We have a solar field that’s 150 megawatts. But that’s just part of the story.
Bill Whitaker: How many people live here now?
Syd Kitson: About 5,000 people. And, you know, eventually–
Bill Whitaker: And you’ve got plans to grow to what?
Syd Kitson: About 50,000 people.
Kitson rode out the storm in his lakeside home in town.
Syd Kitson: And I remember sitting here. I had the weather on. And the weather person says, “Well, this category four hurricane is now heading for Babcock Ranch.” And not only is it heading for Babcock Ranch, but it’s gonna be on the eastern side of the wall which is the worst place to be.
Bill Whitaker: How long did the hurricane sit over you–
Syd Kitson: It was about eight to ten hours.
He took video with his iPhone. At the height of the tempest, there were white caps on the lake.
Syd Kitson: So as soon as the sun came up the next morning, I jumped in my car and I started drivin’ out. And the only damage were a few downed trees and a few shingles off the roofs.
Bill Whitaker: That’s it?
Syd Kitson: That’s it. And so our recovery was maybe a day?
Babcock Ranch
Babcock Ranch was designed to accommodate Florida’s ecosystem with indigenous plants and natural waterways for drainage; it was built 25 to 30 feet above sea level to avoid storm surges. All electric and phone lines are buried.
Bill Whitaker: Aren’t you just lucky that you happen to be on a higher level than most of the parts of Florida that got washed away?
Syd Kitson: Yes, I think that’s important, but not when it comes to the wind and– and flooding and rain. And so if that infrastructure’s not built properly, you will have homes that get flooded. You will have that wind damage.
No one here lost power. Syd Kitson took us to see this massive solar array.
Syd Kitson: What you see is 440 acres.
700,000 panels, built by Florida Power and Light. They withstood Ian’s brutal battering.
Syd Kitson: There’s a lotta water, but you don’t see a single panel that’s been dislodged. And there was quite a bit of wind that came through here over the last few days.
Bill Whitaker: Gusts of 150 or more.
Syd Kitson: Gusts of over 150, and it did not take a single panel outta here, which is really just remarkable.
After seeing the devastation on Sanibel Island, it felt strange to see children playing in parks here, people enjoying themselves, eating at waterside restaurants. While neighboring communities struggle with Ian’s aftermath, the deadliest hurricane since Katrina.
Produced by Graham Messick and Marc Lieberman. Associate producers, Cassidy McDonald, LaCrai Mitchell and Jack Weingart. Broadcast associates, Natalie Breitkopf and Eliza Costas. Edited by Craig Crawford.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Just days after Hurricane Ian struck, a crowd of locals gathered under a huge banyan tree at a motel’s outdoor tiki bar for drink specials and live music. Less than 10 miles away, crews were finishing the search for bodies on a coastal barrier island. Even closer, entire families were trying to get comfortable for the night in a mass shelter housing more than 500 storm victims.
On a coast where a few miles meant the difference between life and death, relief and ruin, the contrasting scenes of reality less than two weeks since the hurricane‘s onslaught are jarring, and they point to the way disaster can mean so many different things to different people.
Arlan Fuller has seen the disparity while working in the hurricane zone to serve marginalized communities with Project Hope, a nonprofit that provides medical relief services. A few factors seem to account for the vast differences from one place to the next, he said: People and places closest to the coast usually fared the worst, as did people with lower incomes.
“There’s an interesting combination of location, the sturdiness of the structure people lived in, and means,” said Fuller.
On Pine Island, where the state quickly erected a temporary bridge to replace one washed out by the storm, volunteers are handing out water, ice, food and supplies. The island’s Publix grocery store reopened with generator power faster than seemed possible, pleasing island resident Charlotte Smith, who didn’t evacuate.
“My home is OK. The lower level did flood somewhat. But I’m dry. They have the water back on running. Things are really getting pretty good.” Smith said.
Life is very different for Shanika Caldwell, 40, who took her nine children to a mass shelter located inside Hertz Arena, a minor league hockey coliseum, after another shelter located at a public high school shut down so classes could get ready to resume. The family was living in a motel before the storm but had to flee after the roof flew off, she said.
“If they say they are going to start school next week, how am I going to get my kids back and forth from school all the way here?” she said. Nearby, a huge silver statue of an ice hockey player looked out over the arena parking lot.
As three shrimpers watched a Sunday afternoon NFL game on a television set in the shade of a trawler that was pushed ashore by Ian, Alexa Alvarez wiped away tears as she stood in the rubble of Fort Myers Beach. She has fond memories of childhood trips with her brother and parents, who lived on the island and lost their home to the storm.
“I had to see it for myself, and just kind of say goodbye,” she said.
Ian, a strong Category 4 storm with 155 mph (249 kph) winds, was blamed for more than 100 deaths, the overwhelming majority of them in southwest Florida. It was the third-deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century behind Hurricane Katrina, which left about 1,400 people dead, and Hurricane Sandy, which had a total death count of 233 despite weakening to a tropical storm just before it made landfall.
For some, the recovery has been fairly quick. Barber shops, car washes, chain restaurants, a gun range and vape shops — lots of vape shops — already have reopened on U.S. 41, known in southern Florida as the Tamiami Trail. Many traffic lights are operating, yet residents of low-lying homes and mobile home parks just off the highway are still shoveling mud that was left behind by floodwaters.
In Punta Gorda, near where boutiques and investment firms do business along a tony street lined by palm trees, Judy Jones, 74, is trying to provide for more than 40 residents of the bare-bones homeless shelter she’s operated for more than five decades, Bread of Life Mission Inc.
“I take care of people that fall through the crack in the system,” she said. “You have people who were on their feet but because of the hurricane, they’re on their knees.”
Cheryl Wiese isn’t homeless: For 16 years she spent the fall and winter months in her modest mobile home on Oyster Bay Lane, located at Fort Myers Beach, before returning to a place on Lake Erie in Ohio for the summer. But what she found after making the 24-hour drive south following Ian all but ruined her.
“I don’t want to even live here anymore. There is no Fort Myers Beach. All my neighbors are gone. All my friends are gone,” she said.
The worst part, she said, might have been driving past the devastation to the public library to begin the process of applying for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A worker told her to be ready for a phone call and visit from a FEMA representative, and not to miss either, Wiese said.
“If I miss the phone call? Out of luck,” she said. “If I miss him? Out of luck.”
Danilo Mendoza, a construction worker from the Miami area whose trailer and tools were blown away by Ian, has seen the places where people are going on with life, where the recovery already is underway, but he’s doing his best to stay positive.
He counts himself fortunate because he has a safe place to stay at the hockey arena, which is located across the street from upscale apartments where people go on morning walks in athletic gear, and the food is abundant.
“I see the big picture,” he said. “They give you blankets, for God’s sake, brand new ones. They give you all the things you need to survive.”
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Just days after Hurricane Ian struck, a crowd of locals gathered under a huge banyan tree at a motel’s outdoor tiki bar for drink specials and live music. Less than 10 miles away, crews were finishing the search for bodies on a coastal barrier island. Even closer, entire families were trying to get comfortable for the night in a mass shelter housing more than 500 storm victims.
On a coast where a few miles meant the difference between life and death, relief and ruin, the contrasting scenes of reality less than two weeks since the hurricane‘s onslaught are jarring, and they point to the way disaster can mean so many different things to different people.
Arlan Fuller has seen the disparity while working in the hurricane zone to serve marginalized communities with Project Hope, a nonprofit that provides medical relief services. A few factors seem to account for the vast differences from one place to the next, he said: People and places closest to the coast usually fared the worst, as did people with lower incomes.
“There’s an interesting combination of location, the sturdiness of the structure people lived in, and means,” said Fuller.
On Pine Island, where the state quickly erected a temporary bridge to replace one washed out by the storm, volunteers are handing out water, ice, food and supplies. The island’s Publix grocery store reopened with generator power faster than seemed possible, pleasing island resident Charlotte Smith, who didn’t evacuate.
“My home is OK. The lower level did flood somewhat. But I’m dry. They have the water back on running. Things are really getting pretty good.” Smith said.
Life is very different for Shanika Caldwell, 40, who took her nine children to a mass shelter located inside Hertz Arena, a minor league hockey coliseum, after another shelter located at a public high school shut down so classes could get ready to resume. The family was living in a motel before the storm but had to flee after the roof flew off, she said.
“If they say they are going to start school next week, how am I going to get my kids back and forth from school all the way here?” she said Saturday. Nearby, a huge silver statue of an ice hockey player looked out over the arena parking lot.
Ian, a strong Category 4 storm with 155 mph (249 kph) winds, was blamed for more than 100 deaths, the overwhelming majority of them in southwest Florida. It was the third-deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland this century behind Hurricane Katrina, which left about 1,400 people dead, and Hurricane Sandy, which had a total death count of 233 despite weakening to a tropical storm just before it made landfall.
For some, the recovery has been fairly quick. Barber shops, car washes, chain restaurants, a gun range and vape shops — lots of vape shops — already have reopened on U.S. 41, known in southern Florida as the Tamiami Trail. Many traffic lights are operating, yet residents of low-lying homes and mobile home parks just off the highway are still shoveling mud that was left behind by floodwaters.
In Punta Gorda, near where boutiques and investment firms do business along a tony street lined by palm trees, Judy Jones, 74, is trying to provide for more than 40 residents of the bare-bones homeless shelter she’s operated for more than five decades, Bread of Life Mission Inc.
“I take care of people that fall through the crack in the system,” she said. “You have people who were on their feet but because of the hurricane, they’re on their knees.”
Cheryl Wiese isn’t homeless: For 16 years she spent the fall and winter months in her modest mobile home on Oyster Bay Lane, located at Fort Myers Beach, before returning to a place on Lake Erie in Ohio for the summer. But what she found after making the 24-hour drive south following Ian all but ruined her.
“I don’t want to even live here anymore. There is no Fort Myers Beach. All my neighbors are gone. All my friends are gone,” she said.
The worst part, she said, might have been driving past the devastation to the public library to begin the process of applying for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A worker told her to be ready for a phone call and visit from a FEMA representative, and not to miss either, Wiese said.
“If I miss the phone call? Out of luck,” she said. “If I miss him? Out of luck.”
Danilo Mendoza, a construction worker from the Miami area whose trailer and tools were blown away by Ian, has seen the places where people are going on with life, where the recovery already is underway, but he’s doing his best to stay positive.
He counts himself fortunate because he has a safe place to stay at the hockey arena, which is located across the street from upscale apartments where people go on morning walks in athletic gear, and the food is abundant.
“I see the big picture,” he said. “They give you blankets, for God’s sake, brand new ones. They give you all the things you need to survive.”
SUFFOLK, Va. — Whenever historic homes get flooded, building contractors often feel compelled by government regulations to rip out the water-logged wood flooring, tear down the old plaster walls and install new, flood-resistant materials.
It’s a hurried approach that’s likely to occur across southwest Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian. But restorers Paige Pollard and Kerry Shackelford say they know something that science is yet to prove: historic building materials can often withstand repeated soakings. There’s often no need, they say, to put in modern products such as box-store lumber that are both costly to homeowners and dilute a house’s historic character.
“Our forefathers chose materials that were naturally rot-resistant, like black locust and red cedar and cypress,” said Shackelford, who owns a historic restoration business. “And they actually survive better than many of the products we use today.”
Pollard and Shackelford are part of an emerging movement in the U.S. that aims to prove the resilience of older homes as more fall under the threat of rising seas and intensifying storms due to climate change. They hope their research near Virginia’s coast can convince more government officials and building contractors that historic building materials often need cleaning — not replacing — after a flood.
In Florida, historic preservationists already fear older homes damaged by Ian may be stripped of original materials because so few craftsmen are available who can properly perform repairs.
“There are some companies that just roll through, and their job is just to come in and gut the place and move on,” said Jenny Wolfe, board president of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.
Pollard and Shackelford’s joint venture in Virginia, the retrofit design firm Building Resilient Solutions, opened a lab this year in which planks of old-growth pine, oak and cedar are submerged into a tank mimicking flood conditions. The tests are designed to demonstrate historic materials’ durability and were devised with help from Virginia Tech researchers.
Meanwhile, the National Park Service has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on similar research at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois.
Researchers there have read through construction manuals from the mid-19th and early 20th centuries to assemble everything from tongue-and-groove flooring to brick walls coated with plaster. The materials were lowered into water containing bacteria and mold to simulate tainted floodwater.
The research may seem glaringly redundant considering all of the older homes that stand intact along the nation’s coasts and rivers: many have withstood multiple floods and still boast their original floors and walls.
Pollard and Shackelford say lumber in older homes is resilient because it came from trees that grew slowly over decades, if not centuries. That means the trees’ growth rings were small and dense, thereby making it harder for water to seep in. Also, the timber was cut from the innermost part of the trunk, which produces the hardest wood.
Plaster can also be water resistant, while common plaster coatings were made from lime, a substance with antiseptic qualities.
But here’s the problem: U.S. flood insurance regulations often require structures in flood-prone areas to be repaired with products classified as flood-resistant. And many historic building materials haven’t been classified because they haven’t been tested.
U.S. regulations allow exceptions for homes on the National Register of Historic Places as well as some state and local registries. But not everyone fully understands or is aware of the exceptions, which can be limited.
The far bigger challenge is a lack of expertise among contractors and local officials, Pollard said. Interpretations of the regulations can vary, particularly in the chaos after a major flood.
“You’ve got a property owner who’s in distress,” said Pollard, who co-owns a historic preservation firm. “They’re dealing with a contractor who’s being pulled in a million directions. And the contractors are trained to get all of that (wet) material into a dumpster as quickly as possible.”
In Norfolk, Virginia, Karen Speights said a contractor replaced her original first floor — made from old-growth pine — with laminate flooring after her home flooded.
Built in the 1920s, Speights’ two-story craftsman is in Chesterfield Heights, a predominantly Black neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places. It sits along an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay in one of the most vulnerable cities to sea-level rise.
“I still believe I had a good contractor, but flooding was not his expertise,” Speights said. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Along Florida’s Gulf Coast, there are thousands of historic structures, said Wolfe of the Florida Trust. A large number of them are wood-framed houses on piers with plaster-and-lath walls.
Many likely just need to be dried out after Ian, Wolfe said. But only so many local contractors know what to do “in terms of drying them slowly and opening up the baseboards to get circular airflow.”
Andy Apter, president-elect of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, agreed that many contractors aren’t well-versed in older building materials.
“There’s no course that I know of that teaches you directly how to work on historical homes,” said Apter, a Maryland contractor. “It’s like an antique car. You’re going to be limited on where you can find parts and where you can find someone who’s qualified to work on it.”
But interest in the resilience of older homes has grown since Hurricane Katrina, which deluged hundreds of thousands of historic structures along the Gulf Coast in 2005, according to Jenifer Eggleston, the National Park Service’s chief of staff for cultural resources, partnerships and science.
Eggleston said the park service recognized the growing need to protect older structures and issued new guidelines last year for rehabilitating historic buildings in flood-prone areas.
The guidelines recommend keeping historic materials in place when possible. But they don’t list specific materials due to the lack of research on their flood resistance.
That’s where the studies come in.
A recent study by the park service and Army Corps found that some historic materials, such as old-growth heart pine and cypress flooring, performed considerably better than certain varieties of modern lumber, Eggleston said.
Those particular floor assemblies could be dried for reuse after so-called “clean water” damage, Eggleston said. But they would likely require refinishing to remove “biological activity,” such as mold and bacteria.
Pollard and Shackelford said they’re hoping for an eventual shift in practices that will save money for homeowners as well as taxpayers, who often foot the bill after a major disaster.
In the meantime, flooding in historic areas will only get worse from more frequent rain storms or more powerful hurricanes, said Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
“Think about our historic settlement patterns in the country,” Berginnis said. “On the coasts, we settled around water. Inland, we settled around water.”
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Residents were allowed to return to a coastal island that was decimated by Hurricane Ian on Saturday with a warning from the governor that the disaster isn’t over.
Many of the homes still standing on Estero Island lack basic services, so portable restrooms, hand-washing stations, shower trailers and other essentials were trucked in for residents who want to stay, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference. Debris still has to be removed before rebuilding can begin.
“There’s a lot more to do, and really some of the hardest stuff is still ahead of us,” DeSantis said.
While residents were initially allowed back on the island after the storm, officials shut down access to allow teams to finish searching the wreckage building by building for possible victims. Once the work was done, residents lined up and were allowed to return on buses.
Shana Dam went to see what was left of her parents’ house.
“It’s gone,” she told the Fort Myers News-Press. “It’s just gone.”
Just getting around the island, home to most of Fort Myers Beach, is difficult because of storm debris, but heavy equipment was used to clear roads.
With handmade signs all over the area warning that looters will be shot by homeowners, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said only nine such theft cases had been reported.
Ian, a high-end Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (249 kph) at landfall, was the third-deadliest storm to hit the mainland United States this century behind Hurricane Katrina, which left about 1,400 people dead, and Hurricane Sandy, which had a total death count of 233 despite weakening to a tropical storm just before it made U.S. landfall.
State officials have reported 94 storm-related deaths in Florida so far and most were in Lee County, which includes the Fort Myers area and nearby Gulf Coast islands including Estero.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Older people with limited mobility and those with chronic health conditions requiring the use of electrically powered medical devices were especially vulnerable when Hurricane Ian slammed into Southwest Florida, and experts warn such risks to society’s oldest are growing as disasters increase with the impact of climate change.
Almost all of the dozens of people killed by Ian in hardest hit Lee County were 50 or older, with many in their 70s, 80s and even 90s. That’s highlighted the rising dangers for those least likely to be able to flee such disasters and those most likely to be impacted by the aftermath.
In this photo provided by Johnny Lauder, Lauder takes a selfie with his mother, Karen Lauder, 86, as he came to rescue her after water flooded her home, in Naples, Fla., Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022, following Hurricane Ian. (Johnny Lauder via AP)
Climate change makes hurricanes wetter and more powerful, but it also increases the frequency of heat waves like ones that scorched the Pacific Northwest the last two summers, killing scores of mostly aged people. It’s also intensified drought fueled wildfires like the inferno that incinerated the California town of Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people, again mostly older.
“It’s not terribly surprising that physically frail, socially isolated people are the most likely to die in these events. But it is politically significant,” said New York University sociology professor Eric Klinenberg. “If we know people are at risk, why aren’t we doing more to help them?”
Klinenberg, who wrote the book “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago” about extreme heat that killed more than 700 mostly older and Black people in July 1991, called Ian a mere preview.
“We saw this happen in Chicago, in (Hurricane) Katrina, in (Superstorm) Sandy, and we are going to see more and more as the globe becomes increasingly hotter,” he said.
Florida in particular will feel the increased impact of climate-fueled disasters, sitting in the path of many Atlantic storms and with a large share of retirees drawn by warm weather, a vast coastline and relatively cheap housing. About 29% of Lee County’s population is 65 and older.
One of the more dramatic stories of Ian demonstrates the risks. Johnny Lauder’s 86-year-old mother Karen Lauder, who uses a wheelchair, initially refused to evacuate. But as the water inside her home began to rise nearly above her head, she was unable to flee and her son had to come rescue her in an ordeal he documented.
In this photo provided by Johnny Lauder, Lauder’s mother, Karen Lauder, 86, is submerged nearly to her shoulders in water that has flooded her home, in Naples, Florida, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022, following Hurricane Ian.
The extreme dangers some face when they lose power was especially clear in Lee County, where an 89-year-old man died after the electricity he needed for his oxygen went out and then his backup generator failed.
Florida has attempted to address some of these issues by setting up shelters where people with health conditions that require electricity for oxygen, dialysis and devices like ventilators can preregister to stay.
AARP Florida Director Jeff Johnson praised the special shelters, saying the state’s county emergency management agencies had modernized and improved evacuation operations the past two decades.
“There is room for improvement, but it would be wrong to say they aren’t doing anything,” he said.
Home-based networks that deliver care and services to older people, as well as neighborhood associations and faith communities can also help by checking on socially isolated older people, Johnson said.
Several hurricane survivors sat in wheelchairs Thursday outside one special shelter set up at an elementary school in Fort Myers.
Merrill Bauchert, 60, was staying there because Ian destroyed his home and he needs electricity for the CPAP machine he uses for severe sleep apnea.
Bauchert said dozens of residents from a senior living facility were staying there, many of them with mobility problems or dependent on electrical medical devices to stay alive.
Large oxygen tanks were used at first for people with breathing problems, he said, but those were later replaced with mechanical oxygen generators for individual use. Conditions have improved with restored water service, but the early days were tough, Bauchert said.
With many people too frail to go outside and no sewer service inside, using the restroom involved putting a plastic bag in a toilet and sitting down, sometimes with help.
“You were actually doing your business in a trash bag. Take the trash bag, tie it in a knot, throw it in the trash can and put another bag in for the next person,” he said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has recognized the disproportionate effect Ian had on the state’s older residents, and the need for local groups to help their recovery.
“It hit in areas that have a lot of elderly residents, and I’ve met a lot of the folks,” DeSantis said at a news conference Thursday. “So you’re somebody who’s maybe 85 years old. You may not be able to do the same home repair that you used to be able to do when you were younger.”
While the death toll of over 100 and property damage from Ian was catastrophic, Hurricane Katrina caused far more deaths and destruction in August 2005.
Researchers have concluded that nearly half of those killed by Katrina in Louisiana were 75 or older. A 2006 Senate Committee report noted a failure by all levels of government to effectively evacuate thousands of older, sick and disabled people from New Orleans as neighbors with cars fled the city.
Older people are also at risk from heat in the days and weeks after major storms.
Scorched wheelchairs rest outside Cypress Meadows Post-Acute, a nursing home leveled by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, on Dec. 4, 2018.
After Hurricane Ida slammed Louisiana in 2021, of nine New Orleans residents killed by heat and 10 for whom heat was a contributing cause of death, only four — two in each group — were under the age of 60, according to information provided by the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office.
The aftereffects of Hurricane Irma in 2017 took an especially large toll. The direct impacts of the storm killed more than 90 people in the U.S., but researchers at the University of South Florida and Brown University found 433 additional residents at Florida nursing homes died within 90 days of the storm, compared to the same period in 2015, when there were no hurricanes.
The study was prompted by the heat-related deaths of 12 residents at a Broward County nursing home that occurred when the storm knocked out air conditioning and staff didn’t move them to another facility. An administrator and three nurses were later charged.
Klinenberg, the sociologist who wrote about the Chicago heat deaths, said the fault lies in in how society cares for its elders not only during disasters, but daily.
“We live in an aging society and in a way we are victims of our own success,” he said. “Europe has the same problem. Also Japan and Korea. People are living decades longer because of medical science, but we don’t know how to care for them.”
Snow reported from Phoenix. Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans contributed reporting.
More than a week after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida, clean up and rescue efforts continue. Kate Cimini, Florida investigative reporter for USA Today, joined CBS News to discuss the latest.
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As Hurricane Ian bore down on Florida, normally reliable computer forecast models couldn’t agree on where the killer storm would land. But government meteorologists are now figuring out what went wrong — and right.
Much of the forecasting variation seems to be rooted in cool Canadian air that had weakened a batch of sunny weather over the East Coast. That weakening would allow Ian to turn eastward to Southwest Florida instead of north and west to the Panhandle hundreds of miles away.
The major American computer forecast model — one of several used by forecasters — missed that and the error was “critical,” a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration postmortem of computer forecast models determined Thursday.
“It’s pretty clear that error is very consequential,” said former NOAA chief scientist Ryan Maue, now a private meteorologist who wasn’t part of NOAA’s postmortem.
Still, meteorologists didn’t miss overall with their official Hurricane Ian forecast. Ian’s eventual southwestern Florida landfall was always within the “cone of uncertainty” of the National Hurricane Center’s forecast track, although at times it was on the farthest edge.
But it wasn’t that simple. Computer forecast models, which weeks earlier had agreed on where Hurricane Fiona was going, were hundreds of miles apart as Ian chugged through the Caribbean.
The normally reliable American computer model, which had performed better than any other model in 2021 and was doing well earlier in the year, kept forecasting a Florida Panhandle landfall while the European model — long a favorite of many meteorologists — and the British simulation were pointing to Tampa or farther south.
Trying to avoid what meteorologists call the dreaded “windshield wiper effect” of dramatic hurricane path shifts, the official NOAA forecast stayed somewhere in between. Tampa — with lots of people and land vulnerable to gigantic storm surges — seemed to be the center of possible landfalls, or even worse just south of the eye so it would get the biggest surge.
Although people’s fears focused on Tampa, Ian didn’t.
The storm made landfall 89 miles (143 kilometers) to the south in Cayo Costa. For a large storm, that’s not a big difference and is within the 100-mile (161-kilometer) error bar NOAA sets. But because Tampa was north of the nasty right-side of the hurricane eye, it was spared the biggest storm surge and rainfall.
People wondered why the worst didn’t happen. There are meteorological, computer and communications reasons.
Overall, the European computer model performed best, the British one had the closest eventual Florida landfall but was too slow in timing and the American model had the highest errors when it came to track, NOAA’s Alicia Bentley said during the agency’s postmortem. But the American model was the best at getting Ian’s strength right, she said.
University of Albany meteorology professor Brian Tang said he calculated the American model’s average track error during Ian at 325 miles (520 kilometers) five-days out, while the European model was closer to 220 miles (350 kilometers).
“A lot of what we notice in the public is when there are big misses and those big misses affect people in populated areas,” Tang said in an interview.
Although this is technically not a miss, people who evacuated Tampa may think it is because the Fort Myers area got the brunt of the storm.
In some ways people are spoiled because the average track error in hurricane forecasts have gotten so much better. The three-day official forecast error was cut nearly in half over the last 10 years from 172 miles (278 kilometers) to 92 miles (148 kilometers), Tang said.
For years meteorologists touted the European model as better, because it uses more observations, is more complex but also takes longer to run and comes out later than the American one, Tang said. The American model has improved after a big boost of NOAA spending, but so has the European one, he added.
The models use a similar physics formula to simulate what happens in the atmosphere. They usually rely on the same observations, more or less. But where they differ is how all those observations are put into the computer models, what kind of uncertainties are added and the timing of when the simulation starts, said University of Miami’s Brian McNoldy.
“You are guaranteed to end up differently,” McNoldy said.
It’s not a problem if the models show similar tracks. But if they are widely different, as during Ian, “that makes you nervous,” he said.
People wrongly focus on funnel-like cone for where the hurricane is forecast to go instead of what it will do in specific locations, said MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel. And in the cone people only pay attention to the middle line not the broader picture, so Emanuel and McNoldy want the line dropped.
Another problem meteorologists say is that the cone is only where the storm is supposed to be with a 100-mile (161-kilometer) error radius, but when storms are big like Ian, their impacts of rain, surge and high wind will easily hit outside the cone.
“The cone was never intended to convey the actual impacts. It was only intended to convey the tracks,” said Gina Eosco, who heads a NOAA social science program that tries to improve storm communications.
So for the first time, NOAA surveyed Florida, Georgia and South Carolina residents before Ian hit and will follow up after to see what risks the public perceived from the media and government information. That will help the agency decide if it has to change its warning messaging, Eosco said.
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NORTH PORT, Fla. — Christine Barrett was inside her family’s North Port home during Hurricane Ian when one of her children started yelling that water was coming up from the shower.
Then it started coming in from outside the house. Eventually the family was forced to climb on top of their kitchen cabinets — they put water wings on their 1-year-old — and were rescued the next day by boat.
After the floodwaters had finally gone down Barrett and her family were cleaning out the damp and muddy house. On the front lawn lay chairs, a dresser, couch cushions, flooring planks and a pile of damp drywall. Similar scenes played out across the block as residents tried to clear out the soggy mess before mold set in.
North Port is about 5 miles (8 kilometers) inland and the Barretts – like many of its residents – live in areas where flood insurance isn’t required and therefore, don’t have it. Now many wonder how they’ll afford much-needed repairs.
“Nobody in this neighborhood has flood insurance because we are a nonflooding area,” she said. “But we got 14 inches of water in our house.”
Many people associate hurricanes with wind damage — downed power lines, shingles or roofing materials ripped off, trees blown over into homes or windows smashed by flying objects, and Hurricane Ian’s 150-mph (241-kph) winds certainly caused widespread damage.
But hurricanes can also pack a massive storm surge as Ian did in places like Naples or Fort Myers Beach.
Heavy rains from hurricanes can also cause widespread flooding far from the beach. Ian dumped rain for hours as it lumbered across the state, sending waterways spilling over their banks and into homes and businesses far inland from where Ian made landfall. People were using kayaks to evacuate their flooded homes, and floodwaters in some areas have still not gone down a week after landfall.
“This is such a big storm, brought so much water, that you’re having basically what’s been a 500-year flood event,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
But flooding is not covered by a homeowner’s insurance policy.
It must be purchased separately — usually from the federal government. Although most people have the option of purchasing flood insurance, it is required only on government-backed mortgages that sit in areas that the Federal Emergency Management Agency deems highest risk. Many banks require it in high-risk zones, too. But some homeowners who pay off their mortgage drop their flood insurance once it’s not required. Or if they purchase a house or mobile home with cash they may not opt for it at all. And flooding can and does happen outside those high risk areas where flood insurance is required.
There have long been concerns that not enough people have flood insurance especially at a time when climate change is making strong hurricanes even stronger and making storms in general wetter, slower and more prone to intensifying rapidly. According to the Insurance Information Institute, only about 4% of homeowners nationwide have flood insurance although 90% of catastrophes in the U.S. involve flooding. In Florida that number is only about 18%.
“We have experienced catastrophic flood events across the U.S. this year, including in Kentucky and Missouri, where virtually no one had flood insurance,” said the Institute’s Mark Friedlander.
Hurricane Ian caused extensive flooding in areas outside of the high-risk zones. According to the consulting firm Milliman, roughly 18.5% of homes in counties that were under an evacuation order had federally issued flood insurance. In areas under an evacuation order that were outside of high-risk zones, 9.4% of homes had a policy.
Last year, FEMA updated its pricing system for flood insurance to more accurately reflect risk called Risk Rating 2.0. The old system considered a home’s elevation and whether it was in a high-risk flood zone. Risk Rating 2.0 looks at the risk that an individual property will flood, considering factors like its distance to water. The new pricing system raises rates for about three-quarters of policyholders and offers price decreases for the first time.
FEMA has long said the new ratings would attract new policyholders. However, a FEMA report to the treasury secretary and a handful of congressional leaders last year said far fewer people would buy flood insurance as prices rise. Since the new rating system has gone into effect in Florida, the number of polices in the state has dropped by roughly 50,000 since August 2021.
After a federally declared disaster, homeowners with flood insurance are likely to receive more money, more quickly, to recover and rebuild than the uninsured.
After major flooding in Louisiana in 2016, for example, the average payment to a flood insurance policyholder was $86,500, according to FEMA. Uninsured homeowners could get individual assistance payments for needs like temporary housing and property damage, but they averaged roughly $9,150.
Congress sometimes provides additional aid after major disasters although that can take months to years to arrive.
“Unless you have flood insurance, the federal government is not going to give you enough assistance to rebuild your home,” said Rob Moore, water and climate team director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
In the North Port neighborhood that was cleaning up from Ian, Ron Audette wasn’t sure whether he would get flood insurance going forward because of the cost. The retired U.S. Navy sailor was cleaning up his one-story home on a corner lot after floodwaters buckled the laminate flooring, swelled wood furniture and left the leather reclining sofa where he watched Patriots games a muddy, watery mess.
“I don’t think we could live here if we had to buy flood insurance,” he said.
But down the street, his neighbor Barrett was definitely planning to get it.
“Get flood insurance even if it’s not required,” she advised. “Because we definitely will now.”
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Phillis reported from St. Louis, Missouri.
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SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — Rotting fish and garbage lie scattered in Sanibel Island’s streets. On the mainland, debris from washed-away homes is heaped in a canal like matchsticks. Huge shrimp boats sit perched amid the remains of a mobile home park.
“Think of a snow globe. Pick it up and shake it — that’s what happened,” said Fred Szott.
For the past three days, he and his wife Joyce have been making trips to their damaged mobile home in Fort Myers to begin cleaning up after Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast.
As for the emotional turbulence, he says: “You either hold on, or you lose it.”
Just offshore, residents of Florida’s devastated barrier islands are also returning to assess the damage to homes and businesses, despite limited access to some areas.
The broken causeway to Sanibel Island might not be passable until the end of the month. In the meantime, residents like Pamela Brislin arrived by boat to see what they could salvage.
Brislin stayed through the storm, but is haunted by what happened afterward. When she checked on a neighbor, she found the woman crying. Her husband had passed away, his body laid out on a picnic table until help could arrive. Another neighbor’s house caught fire. The flames were so large that they forced Breslin to do what the hurricane could not — flee with her husband and a neighbor’s dog.
Ian, a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour (240 kilometers per hour), unleashed torrents of rain and caused extensive flooding and damage. The deluge turned streets into gushing rivers. Backyard waterways overflowed into neighborhoods, sometimes by more than a dozen feet (3.5 meters), tossing boats onto yards and roadways. Beaches disappeared, as ocean surges pushed shorelines far inland.
Sanibel Island had ordered a complete curfew after the storm passed, allowing search and rescue teams to do their work. That meant residents who evacuated the island were technically blocked from returning.
But the city of about 7,000 started allowing residents back from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday. City manager Dana Souza told residents in a Facebook Live stream that he wished the municipality had resources to provide transportation but that, for now, residents would have to arrange visits by private boat.
Pine Island is closer to the mainland than Sanibel, but it too was hit hard by the storm.
Cindy Bickford’s house was still standing. Much of the damage was from the flooding, which left a thick layer of rancid muck on her floors.
“It’s not our stuff we’re worried about. It’s our community. Pine Island is extremely close-knit,” said Bickford, who arrived Thursday for the first time.
She was hopeful that much could be salvaged.
“We’ll tear the home apart so we can live in it,” said Bickford, who wore a T-shirt that said “Relax,” “Refresh” and “Renew.”
The storm caused billions of dollars in damage and killed dozens of people, the majority of victims in Florida. Even a week after it passed through, officials warn that more dead could still be found as they continued to inspect the damage.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, at a news conference Thursday in the Sarasota County town of Nokomis, trumpeted the widespread restoration of running water through the storm-hit zone and the work toward restoring power. Some 185,000 customers remain without electricity, down from highs above 2.6 million across the state.
He said rescue workers have conducted around 2,500 missions, particularly on barrier islands on the Gulf coast as well as in inland areas that have seen intense flooding. More than 90,000 structures have been inspected and checked for survivors, he said.
He said residents areas devastated by the hurricane had been showing great resilience over the past week.
President Joe Biden toured some of Florida’s hurricane-hit areas on Wednesday, surveying damage by helicopter and then walking on foot alongside DeSantis. The Democratic president and Republican governor pledged to put political rivalries aside to help rebuild homes, businesses and lives. Biden emphasized at a briefing with local officials that the effort could take years.
At least 98 storm-related deaths have been reported, 89 of them in Florida. In hardest-hit Lee County, Florida, the vast majority of people killed by the hurricane were over age 50.
Five people were also killed in North Carolina, three in Cuba and one in Virginia since Ian made landfall on the Caribbean island Sept. 27, a day before it reached Florida. After roaring northeast across Florida and into the Atlantic, the hurricane made another landfall in South Carolina before pushing into the mid-Atlantic states.
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Calvan reported from Pine Island, Florida. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee and Ian Mader in Miami contributed to this report.
The devastation from Hurricane Ian has left schools shuttered indefinitely in parts of Florida, leaving storm-weary families anxious for word on when and how children can get back to classrooms.
As rescue and recovery operations continue in the storm’s aftermath, several school systems in hard-hit counties in southwestern Florida can’t say for sure when they’ll reopen. Some schools are without power and still assessing the damage, as well as the impact on staff members who may have lost homes or can’t return to work.
Shuttered schools can worsen the hurricane’s disruption for children. Recovery from natural disasters elsewhere suggests the effects on kids can be lasting, particularly in low-income communities that have a harder time bouncing back.
“In a week or two, we’ll have forgotten about Hurricane Ian. But these districts and schools and students will be struggling months and years later,” said Cassandra R. Davis, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina.
In Florida, 68 of 75 school districts are open for in-person instruction, and two more districts are expected to reopen this week, the state Department of Education said Tuesday. Among those still closed is Sarasota, where nearly half of students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, an indicator of poverty.
Abbie Tarr Trembley, a mother of four in Sarasota, said her youngest, a 9-year-old boy, asks each morning when he can go back to school.
“Every morning he’s like, ‘Mom, is it a school day? Is it a school day?’” she said. “Every morning, I’m almost in tears.”
The hurricane damaged the roof of her house, and the family lost power for three days. She was grateful to be spared worse. But she has begun to worry about the effects on her children and their education. Her son already repeated first grade to help him catch up from the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Online learning recently has been an option for schools dealing with disasters from the coronavirus pandemic to hurricanes, but researchers have said overreliance on remote education is not sustainable.
Davis has studied how Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018 impacted student learning in the southeastern U.S. She said research shows elementary students continued to fall behind academically, as much as two years after a storm. But districts where parents are affluent and school budgets are healthy tend to recover more quickly.
Sarasota County school officials say they hope to reopen schools for some of their 45,000 students on Monday. School leaders are aiming to reopen buildings in the northern part of the county, which suffered less damage compared to the schools in the south.
In the meantime, students can use online resources students if they have access to the internet, Sarasota school officials said at a news conference. Florida’s education department did not respond to questions about its guidance to local school systems for addressing the missed school days.
Sarasota workers are ripping out and replacing carpets and drywall where water breached school buildings and discarding spoiled cafeteria food that went unrefrigerated in the days without electricity. For now, school officials said, standing water makes some streets unsafe for students and families to navigate. School leaders are also assessing which teachers and other staff won’t be able to return to work when schools reopen.
Two schools in the county have served as shelters for displaced residents and will close on Friday to give workers time to clean them before reopening Monday.
Schools in the southern part of the county will take “at least another week to reopen,” Superintendent Brennan Asplen told reporters Tuesday.
Trembley has heard rumors that when schools do start back up, it will be online. She hopes that is not the case. “There’s no way that I can assist a 9-year-old with schoolwork and continue my job,” said Trembley, who works at a general contractor’s office.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, some students faced displacement for a long time, up to five to six months until they were resettled, according to a study. There was a drop in test scores in that first year. “Not only do they have to move their home, but they’re even out of school for some time,” explained Bruce Sacerdote, a economist at Dartmouth College.
Sacerdote compared regions that are harder hit by Ian to a “mini-Katrina” and said students in the places where the hurricane did the most damage will likely see severe effects in the first year, especially if they are fully displaced and must move to another town or state.
“COVID was also a really severe disruption and imposed learning losses on these kids already,” he said. “It’s a double whammy for a lot of these kids. …
“Remote (learning) is better than nothing,” he said, “but it’s nowhere near as good as in person.”
Associated Press writers Brooke Schultz in Harrisburg, Pa., and Michael Melia in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report. Schultz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — As Hurricane Ian approached last week, Jane Compton and her husband — who lost their home and possessions to the storm — found sanctuary at their Baptist church, huddling with fellow parishioners through wind, rain and worry.
They prayed for the gusts to subside and for God to keep them from harm as the hurricane made landfall last Wednesday. Floodwaters swept under the pews, driving the congregation to the pulpit and further testing their faith. The intensifying storm ripped the church’s steeple away, leaving a large gap in the roof. The parishioners shuddered.
“Good Lord, please protect us,” Compton prayed, with her husband, Del, at her side.
She compared the deluge to the biblical story Noah’s Ark, saying they had no idea when the water would stop rising. When it did, there were hallelujahs.
With the storm now passed and its devastation abounding, churches across hard-hit Southwest Florida are providing a steadying force in the lives of those plunged into chaos and grief. Heartache, frustration and uncertainty now swirl in sanctuaries amid sermons about perseverance and holding on to one’s faith.
“We believe this was a blessing in disguise,” said the Rev. Robert Kasten, the Comptons’ pastor at Southwest Baptist Church, a congregation of several hundred in one of the most devastated neighborhoods of Fort Myers.
Also being tested are many of the nearly quarter million Catholics in the Diocese of Venice, which encompasses 10 counties from just south of Tampa Bay to the Everglades that bore the brunt of the hurricane. Bishop Frank Dewane has been visiting as many of the diocese’s five dozen parishes and 15 schools as possible.
“A lot of people just wanted to talk about, ‘Why is there this much suffering?’” Dewane said of parishioners he met as he celebrated weekend Mass in a church in an inundated North Port neighborhood and in the parish hall of a storm-damaged Sarasota church. “We have to go on; we’re a people of hope.”
Priests walked a fine line between holding Mass to provide comfort and not endangering older parishioners in areas with widespread lack of running water and electricity and flooded roadways. Dewane said one rescued man had kept asking about his wife, not realizing she had drowned in the storm.
Around Kasten’s church, nearby mobile home parks where many of his parishioners lived became submerged. About a fourth of his congregation suffered major damage to their dwellings, with many like the Comptons losing nearly everything. The church’s sanctuary has become temporary quarters for nearly a dozen of the newly homeless.
Most were handling things well, until the realities of tragedy hit.
“When they saw pictures, they just burst into tears,” Kasten said.
“Just the shock of knowing and seeing what you knew happened, it overwhelmed them. But they are just praising the Lord how he protected us, kept us safe,” he said.
Barbara Wasko, a retiree who is now sleeping on a lounge chair in the sanctuary, said she has faith the community will rebuild.
“We will get by,” she said. “We will make it.”
Hurricane Ian’s fury — 150 mph (241 kph) winds and deluges of water — killed dozens of people and stranded countless in what for many communities has been their worst calamity in generations.
Rhonda Mitchell, who lives near the Baptist church, said all she had left was her faith in God.
“We don’t know what He is going to do,” she said, her belongings splayed to dry outside her mobile home as an empty U-Haul truck waited to be loaded.
“I just lost my whole life,” she said, beginning to sob. “I’m still here but I just lost everything I own. … I’m just trying to figure things out.”
At badly damaged Catholic churches and schools, reconstruction work is already underway. But Dewane said his priority is to “meet people where they are” and ensure the Catholic community can help overall relief efforts.
That ranges from finding shelter for teachers whose homes were leveled even as many schools are re-opening this week to helping counsel elderly neighbors. The diocese is working with Catholic Charities to set up distribution centers for donations as well as supplies provided by FEMA.
But many successful efforts are grassroots. When a group of nuns in small Wauchula, an inland town, lost power, they decided to just empty out their freezers of meat and other perishables, and invite the entire neighborhood for a barbeque. The fire blazing, hundreds of people lined up and started adding what they had in their own rapidly warming fridges.
“We’re doing as well as we can,” Dewane said. “I think we can only be the Lord’s instruments.”
The Rev. Charles Cannon, pastor at St. Hilary’s Episcopal Church, sermonized about the temporariness of the community’s losses. While much was lost, he said, not all is gone.
“People think they have lost everything, but you haven’t lost everything if you haven’t lost yourself and the people you love,” Cannon said after Sunday services that were held outside amid the fallen boughs of once-majestic oaks.
Cannon pointed out that the debris that left church grounds looking like an ugly, unearthly place can be cleaned.
“Most of the work has been to get the people feeling safe again,” he said, “Almost everybody has been without power. All of them without water. Trying hard to get them feeling comfortable again.”
Down the street, about 50 parishioners at the Assembly of God Bethlehem Ministry gathered to share in their hardships. They recounted how they had no electricity, no drinkable running water and, in many cases, were left with damaged homes.
“But God has kept them safe,” said Victoria Araujo, a parishioner and occasional Sunday school teacher.
“Some people lost a lot of things … We need to pray for the people who lost more than us,” said the Rev. Ailton da Silva, whose congregants are mostly immigrant families from Brazil.
The storm has truly tested his community’s resiliency, he said, adding that “I think people will think about faith, family and God.”
Five years ago, Hurricane Irma swept through the region, causing extensive damage to his church. Repairs were still ongoing when Ian hit. The church fared much better this time.
In the end, “it’s just a building,” da Silva said. “The church is us.”
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Dell’Orto reported from Minneapolis.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Biden on Wednesday emphasized their “cooperation” — despite their political differences — as the president visited Fort Myers, Florida, which was hard hit by Hurricane Ian last week.
DeSantis thanked Mr. Biden for visiting the state and for his responsiveness, and said he’s probably never seen better coordination among state, local and federal government. DeSantis said Florida has been “very fortunate” to have good coordination with the White House and Federal Emergency Management Agency throughout the ongoing crisis. In turn, Mr. Biden in turn thanked DeSantis for his hospitality, and noted the cooperation he and DeSantis had since before the storm hit.
“Today, we have one job and only one job, and that’s to make sure the people of Florida get everything that they need to fully, thoroughly recover,” Mr. Biden said. “… This is the United States of America, and I emphasize, united.”
The president also commended DeSantis, telling reporters that the governor has done a “good job” despite their “different political philosophies.”
“What the governor’s done is pretty remarkable,” Mr. Biden said.
U.S. President Joe Biden stands next to Florida governor Ron DeSantis during a visit to Fort Myers, Florida, U.S., October 5, 2022.
EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / REUTERS
Upon landing in Fort Meyers, Florida, early Wednesday afternoon, the president and first lady Jill Biden took an aerial tour to get a better look at the storm’s devastation. The Bidens were then greeted by DeSantis and Florida’s first lady, Casey DeSantis, at a wharf littered with debris. The president also shook hands with GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.
Together, the president, governor and first ladies met with local officials and residents whose lives were upended by the hurricane.
CBS News has confirmed at least 122 people died due to the storm — 118 in Florida and another 4 in North Carolina. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday said the president and first lady will “reaffirm” the president’s commitment to Florida.
“The president will meet with small business owners and local residents impacted by Hurricane Ian and thank the federal, state and local officials working around the clock to provide life-saving assistance, restore power, distribute food and water, remove debris and begin rebuilding efforts,” Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. “Governor DeSantis, the FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell and other state and local officials will also provide the president with an operational briefing on the current response and recovery efforts.”
Last week, ahead of the storm, Mr. Biden said he’d already spoken with DeSantis several times about the massive storm, and dismissed any suggestion that their political differences would impact their cooperation in helping the people of Florida. Mr. Biden said DeSantis had complimented him on the federal response to the storm.
“This is not about whether or — anything having to do with our disagreements politically,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday. “This is about saving people’s lives, homes, and businesses. That’s what this is about. And so, I’ve been — I’ve talked to him four, five times already. And it’s not a matter of my disagreements with him on other items.”
On Monday, the president and first lady visited Puerto Rico, which is reeling from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Fiona last month, while still rebuilding from Hurricane Maria in 2017.
“You have had to bear so much and more than need be, and you haven’t gotten the help in a timely way,” Mr. Biden lamented in his speech Monday. “And this latest storm dealt a serious blow to all, all the hard work that has been done since Maria.”
President Biden toured Fort Myers, Florida, to see the devastation left by Hurricane Ian. He promised long-term federal support to help the state recover. Manuel Bojorquez has more details.
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ST. JAMES CITY, Fla. — Following Hurricane Ian’s destruction, many residents on one Florida island have stayed put for days without electricity and other resources while hoping the lone bridge to the mainland is repaired.
Pine Island, the largest barrier island off Florida’s Gulf Coast, has been largely cut off from the outside world after Ian heavily damaged its causeway and rendered its towns reachable only by boat or aircraft.
“We feel as a community that if we leave the island — abandon it — nobody is going to take care of that problem of fixing our road in and out,” Pine Island resident Leslie Arias said as small motor boats delivered water and other necessities.
A week after the Category 4 storm hit southwest Florida, the full breadth of its destruction is still coming into focus. Utility workers continued Wednesday to push ahead to restore power and crews searched for anyone still trapped inside flooded or damaged homes, while the number of storm-related deaths has risen to at least 84 in recent days.
At least 75 people were killed in Florida, five in North Carolina, three in Cuba and one in Virginia since Ian made landfall on the Caribbean island Sept. 27, a day before it reached Florida’s Gulf Coast. After churning northeastward into the Atlantic, the hurricane made another landfall in South Carolina before pushing into the mid-Atlantic states.
There have been deaths in vehicle wrecks, drownings and accidents. A man drowned after becoming trapped under a vehicle. Another got trapped trying to climb through a window. And a woman died when a gust of wind knocked her off her porch while she was smoking a cigarette as the storm approached, authorities said.
In hardest-hit Lee County, Florida, all 45 people killed by the hurricane were over age 50.
President Joe Biden was scheduled Wednesday to visit Fort Myers’ Fisherman’s Wharf in an area that was especially devastated by winds and surging tides.
Boats, including huge yachts, were thrown asunder, laying capsized inland far from their usual moorings. Homes and businesses lay in ruins with shattered windows, while the the surrounding landscape is a wasteland of debris and muck.
The wharf lies on one side of the bridge that leads into Fort Myers Beach, which was brutalized by the storm.
The Biden administration said the president has made additional federal disaster assistance available to Florida, including for debris removal and emergency protective measures.
Power restoration has become job one, but vehicle access from barrier islands to the mainland is also a priority. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said a temporary bridge to Pine Island should be finished by the end of the week.
Officials are also planning a similar temporary bridge for nearby Sanibel Island, but it will take a little more time.
“They were talking about running ferries and stuff,” DeSantis said. “And honestly, you may be able to do that, but I think this is an easier thing, and I think people need their vehicles anyways.”
In the meantime, small motorboats continued to provision Pine Island. Jay Pick, who has been on the island since May to help his in-laws, said the winds from Ian blew the house’s roof off.
“We’re all safe, though,” Pick said Tuesday afternoon. “We’re blessed. Driving around seeing what some people have compared to what we have left, you get that survivor-guilt thing. I’m trying not to. I’m trying to be happy for what we do have left.”
Arias, who also chose to stay on the island, said Tuesday that many who stayed are supporting each other.
“We have now gathered a lot of resources, not only donations but volunteers as well,” Arias said. “It’s a wonderful thing to see how the community has come together. In every end of the island … there is a family member or a neighbor helping that other neighbor.”
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Associated Press writer Bobby Caina Calvan in Fort Myers, Florida, contributed to this report.
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For more coverage of Hurricane Ian, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes
