About 10,000 people still in Florida shelters after Hurricane Ian, officials say
Roughly 10,000 people throughout Florida remain housed in shelters after evacuating their homes, officials said Saturday, as Hurricane Ian response efforts continued three days after the disaster.
The number of people displaced was yet another sign of the level of destruction left behind by Ian, as state and federal agencies continued to recover bodies and transport stranded residents.
The initial phase of rescuing hurricane victims with medical emergencies has largely passed, officials said. The vast majority of rescues at this point are from people who are left stranded in the barrier islands.
In areas that took the brunt of the storm’s landfall within Lee County, including Matlacha and Sanibel Island, some residents journeyed back to survey their homes. But the lack of water and basic infrastructure is forcing them back into limbo, said U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Brendan McPherson.
“I think after camping out there after about a night or two, they’re realizing that that’s not a viable option,” McPherson told reporters on Saturday during a call with federal officials on the Ian response. “The state is working to get those people to safety and put them in a stable location to reunify them with families. And then ... I’m sure the state will, with the support of FEMA, will do the hard work of recovering.”
Ed Madden is among the untold number left homeless by Ian who are not staying in shelters. His small mobile home in the Sunnyland Trailer and RV Park is uninhabitable after sustaining 10-feet worth of seawater storm surge.
“It’s ruined. There’s nothing left,” said Madden, 60, who has lived in Sunnyland at the bottom of the bridge to Fort Myers Beach for nine years. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do right now. I don’t know where I’m going to go, to be honest. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Madden stayed in a neighbor’s house during the storm, crammed on the second floor with other neighbors. He’s aware of Lee County shelters at Fort Myers high schools because he considered evacuating to one.
“So many people will have to start over,” said Madden, who works at the Dairy Queen in devastated Fort Myers Beach. For now, it appears Madden is jobless, too.
“I want to rebuild but will need help,” he said.
‘Trying to help’
But on Saturday, recovery seemed a long ways away. With over 50 people potentially dead, search and rescue efforts ongoing, persistent water problems in southwest Florida and over a million without power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was still too early to identify what types of transitional housing programs it was likely to launch.
“We’re working closely with the state on how to tackle all recovery issues, including housing. Those discussions have started and are ongoing, but there’s no resolutions to those discussions,” said Anne Bink, FEMA’s assistant administrator for response and recovery.
In the artsy fishing village of Matlacha, some of the only sounds Saturday morning were birds diving into the flat water, boats beginning to shuttle back and forth from the mainland and alarms blaring from empty homes.
People who stayed during the storm and insist on remaining afterwards were walking their dogs, cleaning up their properties or taking pictures.
“It’s horrible,” said Felipe Cite, 40, speaking in Spanish. He’s a 20-year Pine Island resident who was trying to make calls.
He and his family live in a trailer on Pine Island, south of Bokeelia. The two trailers next to them were completely leveled. Now there are three families sheltering in one home.
“Some homes over there were completely gone,” Cite said, on a boat ride back to the mainland from Matlacha.
On the search and rescue efforts, McPherson said the Coast Guard alone has rescued about 400 people and 100 pets since the storm made landfall, only a fraction of the 4,000 estimated rescues by all assisting agencies at the local and federal level.
On Saturday, two Sarasota area men brought their fishing charter boat down to ferry people and supplies from Matlacha. They talked about the journey down Florida’s west coast, where some roads and highway exits are still closed due to flooding, and power is still out in some towns.
But what they’ve seen in Lee County has shocked them.
“We’re just trying to help,” one of them said.
READ MORE: Hurricane Ian death toll may have surpassed 50. Here’s what we know so far
Looking for normalcy
Elsewhere in Southwest Florida, the adrenaline and feelings of shock were slowly wearing off and giving way to frustration and anger. Despite the lack of power, and to the tune of chainsaws and generators, a few stores and fast food restaurants near Bonita Springs began opening.
At a Wal-Mart in the area, a dozen people sat on the concrete floor in the entryway with cell phones plugged into outlets. Another dozen waited in line to charge their phones.
At a Chevron station, an argument broke out about who had gotten to the pump first.
In the parking lot of a condo complex, all cars sat with all doors wide open, and floor mats lay on the pavement. It was time to air out the stinky interior after being flooded.
Neighbors fired up two grills by the pool, eager to make something good out of something almost rotten — food from their dead refrigerators and freezers.
READ MORE: Hurricane Ian blasted Pine Island like never before. The community is sticking together
In Punta Gorda, close to where Ian made landfall, Gov. Ron DeSantis grilled hash browns in the kitchen during a breakfast meeting with first responders.
DeSantis and some Southwest Florida counties have recently faced questions on whether their evacuation plans were executed quickly enough, as the death toll continues to rise.
On Saturday, DeSantis defended his actions. He said he warned people that their communities all along the Gulf of Mexico would be impacted. DeSantis said the state and the counties were following the data and the path of the storm. When the path of the storm shifted quickly, local officials responded as fast as they could, he said.
“They were following the data,” DeSantis said. “If you remember, people were initially looking at the Panhandle on Sunday, then Monday came and they were thinking maybe north of Tampa Bay. When we went to bed on Monday night, people said this is a direct hit on Tampa Bay, worst case scenario for the state. As that track started to shift south in the computer models the next morning, they called for the evacuation, and they responded very quickly.”
READ MORE: SW Florida residents in Ian’s path had about a day’s warning to evacuate. Was it enough?
While some in Southwest Florida were beginning to take stock of what the storm left behind, others were still bracing for more water damage. Late on Friday, officials with the Florida Department of Transportation were forced to close a 14-mile portion of I-75 because of flooding from the Myakka River in Sarasota County. The river has receded and the road has since reopened.
Still, the overnight threat was enough to send Sarasota County sheriff deputies door to door on Saturday morning, urging residents of the Hidden River community to evacuate because of a potential levee break. The flooding could impact about 70 residents, the sheriff’s office said.
And in Central Florida, where historic inland flooding has already wreaked havoc across several counties, Osceola County officials urged residents to heed new voluntary evacuation orders because flood water levels are expected to continue to rise into next week, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
“I’m specifically one of those individuals as I had to be rescued from my house this morning in order to be here today,” said Osceola Commissioner Brandon Arrington. “Places that have never experienced flooding are now experiencing flooding.”
Even days removed from Ian’s landfall, Arrington gave one last plea during a Saturday morning press conference, as flood waters in the storm’s wake threatened more homes and lives: “Please, please look to evacuate.”
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau staff writer Ana Ceballos and Miami Herald staff writer Nick Nehamas contributed to this story.
