HURRICANE IAN

I am going to be honest, this blog has been typed for weeks now but I haven’t gotten around to officially posting it. This post is very overdue and no matter what I say, it will never fully encompass everything that has happened, but I will do my best. I'm sure most of you are aware of the hurricane that hit Southwest Florida. It was projected to make landfall much further North from where I live, but it just happened to change its mind last minute and directly hit Fort Myers and the surrounding cities. This has been beyond worse than anyone had ever imagined. Every year during hurricane season there is a slight scare, but it usually ends up being only a tropical storm which I feel like we deal with every day during the Summer down here. You seem to get so used to hurricanes psyching you out that you assume everything will be fine and you won’t be affected. That was clearly not the case this time around.

My family wanted to fly me back home to Chicago before the storm hit, but of course like all the other Floridians, I thought we would be totally okay and it would be a waste of time and money. Instead, I went to Marco Island where I stayed with close family friends. Yeah, I know... what was I thinking going to an Island for a hurricane? But hear me out, I felt a whole lot safer being with family in a secure home rather than being alone in my apartment building, nervous that when (not if) the power went out and I lost service, someone would still not know I was okay. To my surprise, through the entire storm my apartment complex was one of the only places that never lost power. Later I found out that it was because they are on the same grid as some of the shelters in the area. I just think it's ironic that on a normal day when a hurricane isn’t absolutely destroying the area, my apartment complex has all types of issues, but when mister Ian arrived, everything wanted to work. Whatever, I shouldn’t be complaining.

This has been the most insane thing I think I have ever gone through; I still haven’t truly come to terms with the fact that mine along with so many others’ home of Fort Myers is gone and truly never will be the same. I don’t think I will ever wrap my head around it.

My Story

Like I said, I was on Marco Island for it all. I got there Monday evening to make sure I arrived before anything started; I can barely handle driving in the normal Florida rain, I sure as hell wouldn’t make it through a hurricane. It wasn’t until late Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning that things really got going. I remember telling Annalisa (basically my sister) to wake me up whenever things started to get crazy because I didn’t want to miss it. I love watching storms, but I definitely wasn’t aware of what this storm had in store. She woke me up around 3am to a slight breeze in the trees. I thought “seriously this is it? This is what the hype was all about?”. To my surprise (not a great one) I definitely was not going to miss the storm which ended up lasting HOURS. It wasn’t until around 5pm that things finally calmed down. We spent the day watching as the wind picked up and the water in the canal continued to rise like a broken toilet waiting to overflow. 10am white caps formed in the canal. 11am water neared the top of the canal. 12pm docks underwater. 1pm water from the streets joined water from the canal. 2pm fence underwater. 3pm Marco Island completely underwater. No land to be seen, each house was its own island. The phrase “No don’t worry there is no way the water will rise any higher” was said about 100 times. At one point we looked out front and saw the water had already risen high enough to submerge the back tires of our cars. Two people had to wade through the water to cross the street to pull their cars up further so they wouldn’t flood. I thought it would be a good idea to pull my car into the garage and park Annalisa’s car horizontally before it was too late, but once again,” Don’t worry the water won’t get that high, you don’t need to do that”. Hell I didn’t...5 minutes later I looked outside and the water had already risen another few inches. Annalisa and I  took it upon ourselves to clear the garage and park our cars like we had said before. Thank goodness we did because 15 minutes more and our cars would have been ruined. We got lucky that around 5pm the water had stopped rising, probably only a few feet before it reached the house. 

Throughout the day we continued to hear transformers blow up which sounded like a bomb going off. Our power went out in the middle of the day, but luckily they had a generator which gave us access to a few outlets to plug fans into. We were extremely grateful to have made it through the hurricane the way we did. We were out of service for quite a while which limited our access to the news and social media, so we really had no idea what was happening everywhere else. I think that was the scariest part. I tried my best to keep my family and close friends updated on how we were doing but when I was not able to reach anyone, I felt sick to my stomach. They were watching live footage on the news of the most devastating hurricane to ever hit Florida while their daughter was living through it not knowing if she was okay or not. 

Compared to Fort Myers, Marco Island was extremely lucky. Of course closer to the beach there were more trees down, a few stranded cars that had floated away, a few misplaced boats, and broken signs but nothing like what I was about to see up North. Once I started to get service back, the footage began to roll in. Words truly can’t describe how I felt. Fort Myers beach was completely gone, absolutely destroyed. I ended up heading back to my apartment Friday morning once I was sure we had power and it was safe to be there. I am not going to lie, the drive back was scary; all the stop lights were out and hanging by a thread. No one was stopping like they should have been and it was pure chaos. Once I was getting closer to school, things started to look worse. You could tell the exact route the wind took because the trees that were left standing were all bent in the same direction. Quite surreal, but still nothing close to what I was about to witness in the next few days. 

The Aftermath

The following week was full of helping one another and tears, (a lot of tears). I was able to help out a really close friends’ family whose home was destroyed in the storm. We did a lot of yard work and gutting of the house since it needed to be demolished. I also worked alongside the United Cajun Navy who came all the way from Louisiana, Mississippi, and surrounding states to help. They set up a few tents on the side of the road where we organized donations such as food, water, ice, toiletries, cleaning supplies, pet food and much more. People drove through and were provided with as many supplies as possible. They even served hot meals to those in line. Another day, we went down near Fort Myers Beach to a neighborhood that was absolutely destroyed. When we pulled down the street, we drove directly into a yacht that was in the middle of the road…  a whole ass YACHT!! The family we were helping told us that during the storm as they held onto the rafters, they watched as the yacht floated directly towards them. Luckily it didn’t crash into them but get this: A man and his two dogs were actually on the boat through the entire storm! The craziest thing. We helped clear one family's backyard that was scattered with people’s belongings. We pulled a full sofa chair along with photo albums and wallets out of the trees. It was truly heartbreaking to find peoples’ treasures covered in mud and probably miles away from home. Not only was it difficult to see these things but the stories the people we met told us really did a number. One person told us how their neighbors’ house was completely submerged under water, and they were left to swim hours through the storm as their neighbors who had passed away floated past them. That is now a thought that will never leave my mind. Can you even imagine?! Another woman that I spoke to while helping the United Cajun Navy told me how she has a few cats and she had been putting food out every day but she hasn’t seen them since. On top of all of this, everything everyone has already gone through, they have to continue to worry as people are taking advantage of such a terrible time and are looting the neighborhood that has already lost everything. It blows my mind.

2 Months Later

It has officially been exactly 2 months today since Ian has made landfall in Fort Myers. Although all the cameras are gone and the news is on to a different topic, Florida is still struggling and will continue to struggle for a long time. Everything is still destroyed and people are still clearing out their homes. People think things are back to normal, but that will never be the case. I will include some photos that I have taken personally. I also plan on heading to the beach to see it in person for the first time this week. I think I have been putting this off for a while now. I know it won’t be easy but I feel it is something I need to do. I will be sure to post an update on that journey in the near future. 

Side note: I have had so many side notes that have come to mind while going through all of this. First of all, you really find out who truly cares about you during a time like this. The amount of people that reached out to me and continued to check in on me throughout it all to make sure I was okay meant SO SO SO much. People I haven’t spoken to in years texted me to check in and see if I was safe. Something like this really puts things into perspective on who really cares about you.

Side note 2: Volunteering is normally such a selfless thing to do; How can you be self-ish (but in a good way) during a time like this? I can tell you that you absolutely can be. There was so much going on during this time: different volunteer opportunities, work, school, and trying to keep my own sanity. You can’t possibly do it all so you need to choose what you want to do and make sure you don’t get burnt out. During this time, I personally felt it was more important to me to be out in the community helping, rather than making money at one of the places I work. But then again sometimes you need to make money, so you shouldn’t feel guilty about working during a time like this. Like I have said before, it is all about balance. Going through such a traumatic experience like this definitely takes a toll on anyone. Make sure you are taking care of yourself in the midst of taking care of everyone else. How will you be able to help your community when you are too burnt out and drained yourself?