The destruction of Sanibel Island, South Carolina, during the Hurricane Ian, according to Vice Mayor Richard Johnson, whose family and friends were killed by hurricane Ian

Every single home on Sanibel Island is damaged in one way or another, and people have lost everything in some cases, Vice Mayor Richard Johnson told CNN’s Pamela Brown Wednesday. Ninety-five percent of homes on Sanibel Island have been visited by urban search and rescue teams, Johnson said, adding that the city is now looking forward to rebuilding, which brings its own concerns.

The Heltons were displaced by Hurricane Ian and have a wonderful story to tell. A number of communities that escaped the storm are now facing flooding from rivers. Some 10,000 people remain in shelters.

The chunks of dock ripped by the storm surge and floated onto the ground “could weigh as much as a ton,” he added. “They were thrown around like they were nothing.”

“I can’t believe the destruction,” Emig told CNN through tears as she and her wife looked at the field of debris in front of them. It is laughable that a storm can wipe us out within a few hours.

The city has no reported fatalities, and authorities, who have rescued more than 200 people, confident that they have gotten everybody, Anderson told CNN. Now, the biggest need in the city is for electricity and water.

He told the resident that 80% of the city is still without power even though crews are already working on restoration, and that he can expect power back bit by bit each day.

“Until we can get the roads cleared, the power lines secured, I would really love for people to stay home. It’s not safe to be out there. The trees are ready to fall. A lot of times, there’s more deaths after the hurricane, from trees falling … People are hitting power lines.

The Category 4 storm washed away roads, bridges, cars, boats and homes. The damage is so extensive that, according to the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, it may take years to rebuild.

Rescue crews went door to door in communities devastated by Hurricane Ian in Florida searching for survivors and they are reporting more deaths, residents are facing a lengthy recovery.

While Ian left Florida on Thursday afternoon as a tropical storm, South Carolina residents were bracing for lashing winds and heavy rain as it quickly became a hurricane again at sea; forecasters said it could strengthen again before doubling back onto land there by Friday.

One official who flew over the community estimates that 80% of the structures will have to be rebuilt. Ian wreaked havoc with a storm surge and winds that were close to 150 miles per hour. The bridge to the island was damaged in the storm and has now been closed. People who were forced to leave their homes and are surprised by how little remains.

The Heltons say they will stay in Florida until they are able to connect with FEMA. They say they’ll dispose of a property they loved, but which, like so much else on Fort Myers Beach, is now gone forever.

That, Jim Helton says, and the boat he found in the middle of his house. It demolished his sunroom and opened the house to the elements. He doesn’t know who owns the boat and what it will take to remove the rest of the rubble that was his home. “It will probably be there for six months or a year,” he says, “because so many places have been hit.”

He tried to stay positive, but when he saw the boat inside his house and the damage done by the surge, his heart sank. “It was hard to get in there because the couches and everything floated up, all mixed together.”

His wife Susan adds, “And the washing machine.” The surge picked up everything in the house: furniture, heavy appliances, a golf cart, “and books,” Susan says, “all my books.”

Jim says the house was going to be sold this winter. “I got over there today and there was a note by the coffee machine, ‘Call the sales lady.’ That hurt. It’s a blow he’s not sure he can recover from. He says he’s hanging in. “I’m fighting depression. I would cry right now. I’m not.

Fort Myers Beach Florida Florida-Ian: A Model of Hurricane-Catastrophe Associated with the Loss of an American Island

According to a catastrophe modeling company, insured losses can exceed $60 billion and total damages can reach $100 billion. Ian would be the fourth costliest hurricane in US history if those numbers hold up.

Jim believes the island community will not be rebuilt for at least a decade. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to see it. He and his wife are thinking about Texas while he waits. “I have a son over there,” he says, “and he doesn’t like Florida.” Susan says neither do she that much now.

Susan Helton has experienced trauma before. She was in Manhattan on 9/11, she was a New Yorker. “I thought, you gave me one disaster, don’t push it. The higher power came in and said, “Go ahead and press that button one more time and see if she can take it.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/02/1126469206/fort-myers-beach-florida-hurricane-ian

Rejuvenating after a Hurricane: Finding the Part of a Cottage that Brought Me to Life in a Single, Low-Lying Land Area

Jim says he’s also thought about God, the challenge he’s been given and whether he’s still up to it. “I’ve had a good life and he threw me this curve. Jim smiles and says he’s alive. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Because I’m just about out of gas.”

One of the ways to do that is to heed lessons and rebuild wisely after big storms. In some cases, for example, it might not make sense to replace homes on low-lying land, over and over again, in areas vulnerable to storm surge.

There are no reasons to repeat the same mistakes in exactly the same way, according to Auroop R. Ganguly, a professor at Northeastern University. When it comes to rebuilding, he said, “there is a tendency for people to look in the rearview mirror” and assume that what we built before is still tenable.

The only part of the 90-year-old cottage that remains is a piece of a recent addition. Two blocks away, pieces of his home were found.

“You see a friend that you weren’t sure was alive or dead and that brings you joy. A joy that is more than the loss of property. ,” Veach added.

Family Trees and Animals as a Shelter for Hurricanes and Hurricanes, and How to Obtain Food and Supplies for the Village of Sanibel, Florida

The family said they had been having trouble reaching her despite their best efforts. She was found dead Friday in her Cape Coral home.

“One hundred blizzards will not cost you what one hurricane will cost you,” said Susan McGuire, who moved to Florida from Maryland a few years ago. My husband’s business was destroyed, my daughter is dead, and I never had a snowstorm take anything from me.

Many of the homes in Sanibel are unsafe, as evidenced by the fact many are off of their foundations and there are snakes and alligators on the island.

A lot of places are not safe. There are places off their foundation, and it’s very dangerous out there,” Briscoe said. There are snakes all over the place, and there are alligators in the area.

A similar situation is playing out on nearby Pine Island, the largest barrier island on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Just days ago, it was a tranquil fishing and kayaking destination known for its small-town atmosphere. It has become a scene of destruction with cracked roads and destroyed homes.

“Food is being delivered to Pine Island. Now, is it enough to sustain them over a long period of time? The Lee County Manager said Monday that they can’t say that yet.

Emergency physician Dr. Ben Abo, who joined rescuers on Pine Island, said crews are encountering residents who were in denial the storm would hit the area and are now running out of supplies.

“I’m seeing a lot of despair, but I’m also seeing hope,” Abo said. “I’m seeing urban search and rescue, fire rescue, bringing hopes to people that we’re going to get through this. In stages we have to do it.

The bridge isn’t going to be a 45 mile per hour bridge but at least you will have a connection to the mainland.

On the Last Contact of David Park, a Police Officer, in Port Charlotte, Fla: Flooding, Homes, Housing Stocks, and Evacuation

He painted a somber picture of the area, describing thousands of destroyed boats and vessels that have ended up in yards, in mangroves, and sunk in shallow waters and environmental hazards from leaking diesel and fuel.

Johnny Lauder, a former police officer, said he sprang into action when his mother called in a panic because water was reaching her chest.

“The water was up to the windows, and I heard her screaming inside,” Lauder said. “It was a scare and a sigh of relief at the time – a scare thinking she might be hurt, a sigh of relief knowing that there was still air in her lungs.”

Tonia Werner is among those waiting to hear news about a loved one. It’s been three days since she heard anything about her father, David Park, who was admitted to ShorePoint ICU in Port Charlotte days before Hurricane Ian made landfall.

“As of Friday he was on a ventilator and that’s the last contact,” Tonia told CNN. No phones, nothing. I don’t even know if he’s alive. I have reached out every which way I can think of, begging for information because we’re stuck. There is no way to get to him.

Tonia lives nearly an hour away from Port Charlotte and is cut off from being able to reach the area by flooding in Arcadia, which has blocked access for anybody to get across town, she said.

Florida hospitals have also been struggling. Emergency departments sustained damage, hospital workers lost their vehicles, and some facilities lost reliable access to water.

Emergency departments have been damaged, and many hospital workers have been forced to relocate, because of the lack of reliable access to water.

Hospitals also don’t typically discharge patients who don’t have a place to go, whether their homes were damaged in the storm or their nursing homes were evacuated and temporarily closed.

Local officials and housing advocates worry about what the damaged housing stock will mean for people with low wages or fixed incomes. Some people said they were only able to stay in water ravaged homes.

Edward Murray is a housing expert andassociate director of the Metropolitan Center at Florida International University. “But what about poor communities? But what about individuals?”

It ravaged mobile and trailer homes; it submerged the first floors of houses and peeled the roofs off apartment buildings. Many workers and their families are without a job and living in poverty due to the devastating effects of the storm.

In Winter Springs, a city of strip malls and subdivisions in Seminole County, northeast of Orlando, Robert McLain, 67, a military veteran and retired construction worker, sat in the garage of his waterlogged rental home. With foot-high water marks in his home, there was no way he could move back in. Mr. McLain, who lives on social security and disability benefits, figured there were few options but to live in his car for a while. “I’m not running to go live in the Hilton, you know what I’m saying?” he said. “I’m totally screwed.”

Three hours’ drive southwest in Arcadia, an inland agricultural community in one of the state’s poorest counties, Joann Hampton, 50, stood on a raised pool deck, crying. The nearby Peace River had drenched much of her neighborhood. It submerged her backyard and house where water from the river continued to seep in, days after the storm passed.

“It’s all gone,” said Ms. Hampton, who had property insurance but, like many Floridians, not flood insurance. In 1998 she bought a one-story ranch-style home for $44,000. Her only income is a disability check and for now, she will live with a relative nearby. We lost everything.

Despite all the destruction, Emig told CNN she remained hopeful her community would rebuild. “Sanibel’s full of a lot of working people who care about the island and we’ll be back,” she said. “Sanibel will be back.”

A walk along a sandy road took less than a mile from the shoreline of Sanibel Island to the home of emig and paskaly. On the way, the couple saw a familiar bright blue street sign lying mangled in the mud in a pile of twisted gutters, blankets and branches. They also passed a large banyan tree that had many of its branches twisted and snapped, with one large branch lying in front of a neighbor’s garage.

On the same day that President Joe Biden visited Florida to see Ian’s destruction, Sanibel reopened to residents. The President, who received an aerial tour of the damage in Fort Myers, was also briefed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Florida officials on the response to the storm and recovery efforts.

Biden said at the news conference that they have one job. To make sure the people of Florida are able to fully recover.

“We’re absolutely concerned about rebuilding. Johnson said it will happen again. We will be prepared. We will rebuild and we will be better than before.

Julie Emig and Vicki Paskaly’s mailbox during a hurricane-induced flood on June 23: Flood-water notices for victims of Hurricane-Ian in Sanibel Island

More than 2,300 rescues have been recorded by search and rescue personnel who combed through 79,000 structures in the state.

Sanibel Island city manager Dana Souza says search and rescue teams will start searching damaged and destroyed homes on Thursday. Teams will not enter homes unless they have reason to believe that someone needs assistance.

More than 270,000 customers remained without power Wednesday in the state, with many of them in Charlotte and Lee counties. Some areas have boil-water notices in place, because hospitals are not always able to provide care.

After Hurricane Ian hit Sanibel Island, Julie Emig and Vicki Paskaly’s pool was covered with metal and wood debris.

The chaotic scene left Paskaly in a trance. She was covering her mouth and said she only expected parts of the screen enclosure to fall.

Julie Emig and Vicki Paskaly look at their displaced mailbox amid the destruction outside of their home one week after Hurricane Ian pummeled Sanibel Island.

The couple found a piece on top of a shelf filled with water in their garage, and believed the surge was at least 5 feet. The floor was slippery from being covered in sludge. The Mini Cooper was ruined by mold and water.

I knew I was going to lose it, but you just stare at it, and it’s 5 or 6 feet of water in here. Emig said through tears.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-wednesday/index.html

Influence on the City of Sanibel by Hurricane Ian Florida Recovery During a Hurricane Leaking in April 2021

Ian was also angry with others. The owner of Sanibel Home Concierge had to tell her clients that their homes were beyond saving.

“It’s totally devastating to hear them on the other end of the phone, just gasping for air, and you’re telling them their home was destroyed,” Garcia said. “It’s totally heart-wrenching for me.”

Steve and Lori Schulz rode out the storm at their friends’ house on the island. They were securing homes for neighbors who weren’t on the island, and by the time they finished, they no longer felt like they had time to leave, the couple told CNN.

“You can go over it in a helicopter and you see damage, but it does not do it justice until you are actually on the ground, and you see concrete utility poles sawed off right in half, massive power lines everywhere, massive amounts of debris,” he said.

It could take a month or longer just to restore power to some areas of Sanibel and Pine islands, Lee County Electric Cooperative spokesperson Karen Ryan told CNN. She said that restoring power will be easier once we are able to access the island.

An estimated 6,400 people lived in the City of Sanibel as of April 2021, according to the US Census Bureau. Each year the island sees a lot of tourists, and there are a number of hotels and resorts on the island.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-wednesday/index.html

Influence on Pine Island by Hurricane Iii: Public Schools in Charlotte County are preparing to open for business reopen on Thurday despite the Hurricanes

Neighboring Pine Island residents should be able to access their community by car later Wednesday, DeSantis announced, when crews are expected to complete a temporary fix for a part of a damaged bridge washed away in the storm.

Darrell Hanson and many of his employees are trying to piece together what they can while dealing with the loss of their livelihoods and personal property at the height of tourist season.

Employee Ty Landers, who works on a pirate cruise at the marina, rode out the storm at his family’s home in Fort Myers. He said his family and home are safe.

Many of our employees, even my crewmates, they lost their houses because of the pirate ships, according to Landers. Hopefully when the time is right they will come back. But right now their lives fell apart, and they’re putting it back together.”

Charlotte County announced in a news release that residents of the two counties with the highest death tolls from the Hurricane will be able to get blue coverings with fiber-reinforced sheeting for free on their roofs to help prevent further damage.

Public schools will be closed until further notice in Charlotte County after several of its schools were damaged by Ian. The storm was here for over 12 hours. Nothing is safe right now,” Charlotte County public schools spokesperson Mike Riley said.

Chad Oliver, a spokesman for the district, said he didn’t know how many kids would show up for school. More than than 22% of the district’s teachers live in hard-hit Lee County, but Oliver says the district is confident it is ready to reopen with the help of more than 800 substitute teachers.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-wednesday/index.html

The holiest day of the year: how a hurricane affected her home and emergency sheltering facility in Lee County, Alabama, gave her hope

The generators were all ready. We had all the fuel we needed. When it comes to the loss of water from utility companies, we could not anticipate it, said the president and CEO of Lee Health.

Homes the storm tore from their foundations blocked the streets leading to her house, which she found ablaze when she arrived, she told CNN in an interview Wednesday.

When combing through the ashes, Hernstadt found only a candlestick holder, which her great-grandmother had carried in her pockets when she left Poland for the US.

She said Wednesday that it was the simplest of things that she had and gave her a sense of hope. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year in Judaism.

Cara Cuite is an assistant extension specialist and health psychologist in the human ecology department at Rutgers University. Rebecca Morss is a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The opinions expressed here are of their own. There is more opinion on CNN.

Also important in Ian was how prior personal experiences with hurricanes influence people’s decisions. The areas that have been devastated by Ian have had close calls with hurricanes in the past. While these storms affected many of the same communities, they did not have the same impacts as Ian, which may have created a false sense of security among some residents.

Meteorologists’ forecasts of Ian’s probable track changed as the storm approached landfall, as forecasts typically do. The storm hit south of us, and areas such as Lee County, which were thought to have a lower chance of a direct impact, were directly in Ian’s path.

Ian also underwent rapid intensification, perhaps influenced by climate change, which meant that its wind speeds increased dramatically as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before landfall.

Evacuating Zones in Lee County, Florida, After the Nicole Category 1 Tropical Storm on Wednesday, April 21st, 2003: An Overview

Emergency managers need at least 48 hours to successfully evacuate southwest Florida. Voluntary orders for Lee County were given less than 48 hours before the storm, and that some areas were made mandatory just before the storm hit. This was less than the amount of time outlined in Lee County’s own emergency management plan.

Some people cited the lack of time to evacuate as one of the factors that kept them behind, however there are other factors that may have kept people out of certain areas.

In order to correctly follow evacuation orders, people need to first know their evacuation zone. Research from other areas of the country indicates that many people don’t. The websites for the evacuating zone locator in affected counties were crucial. However, so many people were checking their zones that some of these websites crashed in the days before the storm.

Critical factors in peoples’ decisions to leave should be given concrete information from the media and public officials.

Many lists of available shelters included clear indications of whether they were pet friendly or could accommodate individuals with special needs, which was likely helpful to the more than 33,000 people who used the public shelter system. However, among those who did not evacuate, pets and disability continue to be cited as reasons, indicating that more outreach and evacuation support is needed in these areas specifically.

The family home of Trip Valigorsky in a tight- knit community in Florida has been washed away because of the powerful winds and storm surge from Hurricane Nicole.

At least 49 beachfront properties, including hotels and condominiums, have been found to be unsafe in the aftermath of Nicole, which hit Florida’s eastern coast as a Category 1 storm early Thursday but then weakened into a tropical storm later in the day.

The sea level in this area has risen at least a foot in the past 100 years, but most of that increase occurred in the past three decades according to data from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.

Scientists and researchers have long warned that sea level rise is leading to more erosion and high-tide flooding — particularly during extreme coastal storms.

This has put even more stress on seawalls that are meant to protect coastal communities from high waves and water levels, many of which were destroyed this week by the storm surge. One seawall that was put up on Tuesday, which Valigorsky and his neighbors had hoped would protect their properties from damage, crumbled into the ocean by Wednesday, he said.

After watching the storm get even worse, Valigorsky decided to grab his belongings and his dog and leave the area. By the time he returned, all that remained of his home was the garage and the front foyer.

Valigorsky plans to rebuild with his neighbors who also lost their homes, as his community begins to rebuild after Nicole.

In two years, Martin said he has lived in the area and he spent time with his children and granddaughters at his permanent residence, which was in the backyard or on the beach.

“There’s no politics at the beach, everyone gets along,” Martin said, adding that his community and those surrounding Wilbur-By-The-Sea are keeping his spirits high.

The Sampsons, a Miami Beach Coastal Community, have No Idea How Hurricane Nicole Affected Their Beachfront Neighborhood. After Hurricane Nicole, Beth and Rachel Ann Payne explains the aftermath of their Florida beachfront home

“It doesn’t really take a strong storm – you just need high tides or storm-agitated tides to wash away or put extra stress on the walls,” he said. “Having these two storms six weeks apart, if you don’t give places any time to repair or replenish, each storm definitely leaves its mark.”

Arlisa Payne, who has been a resident of the beachfront community for most of her life, told CNN affiliate Spectrum News 13 that she’s “never seen anything like this” after assessing the damage caused by Hurricane Nicole.

The mother of four children said many of her neighbor’s homes were not damaged by Hurricane Ian but they were hit hard by Nicole, making it difficult for the community to prepare for such storms.

People from colder states like Beth andRalph have come to FortMyers for the sandy beaches. They call Michigan home, but spend much of the year in Florida.

Lee County isn’t as upscale as many of Florida’s coastal areas. It’s a county in which 28% of renters are low-income or paying at least 40% of their income to rent, according to a 2022 report from the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies.

The Sampsons own a home in Fort Myers Beach – it’s still standing. In October, one month after Ian hit, their neighborhood was a mess, with lots of empty homes up and down their block.

“One double lot has already sold, but we’re not sure of the amount or who is behind us.” It’s like, oh boy, that’s fast,” Sampson said. “I’m afraid … We’re going to lose the beauty that we shared.

On Florida Gulf Coast Developers Eye-Properties-Raised by Hurricane Ian: A Case Study of Brad Cozza’s Real Estate Brokers

In 2021, Florida’s real estate industry accounted for $294 billion, or 24% of the gross state product, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. There are more than 300,000 people in the state of Florida.

Two affordability concerns are emerging among residents as developers turn to Southwest Florida: flipping damaged single-family homes, rendering them unaffordable for long-term residents, and the construction of larger luxury complexes.

Brad Cozza, who owns real estate brokerage in southwest Florida, said new out-of-state investors – from Wall Street hedge funds to major hotel chains – are already looking at new investments in the region.

Cozza added that his firm has already been involved in acquiring 39 properties since Hurricane Ian. His clients bought a damaged waterfront home in Cape Coral, across the bridge from Fort Naples, for $670,000. After renovations, Cozza expects it to sell for almost $1 million.

“You’re going to see values jump, and you’re seeing a lot of new players that are now in the area that would not have been in this area pre-storm,” Cozza said.

This, Cozza said, is just plain market dynamics. Many people who did not have flood insurance can’t afford to rebuild due to that.

It’s expensive to build new structures up to code, because most of them have been altered to make houses better able to survive disasters, said the director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center.

“Older houses, in general, are more affordable,” Meyer said. “And so when you wipe out an older housing stock, even just building new, period, is going to be more expensive.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/21/1143088346/on-floridas-gulf-coast-developers-eye-properties-ravaged-by-hurricane-ian

Zoning Single Family Homes in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., after a First-Principles Hurricane and a Judge’s Decision

Federal disaster recovery money to help homeowners rebuild does exist. The HUD has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to states in the wake of hurricanes to help lower-income homeowners.

Meyer thinks that it will take one or two years before the money arrives in Florida, since the state has to submit a funding plan to the HUD. She said that local officials could encourage homeowners not to sell, but to instead rebuild their property and stay in their home.

Zoning for single family homes can also help maintain the housing stock for lower-income residents, Meyer said, by preventing larger high-end complexes.

Jason Green, an independent zoning consultant for the town of Fort Myers Beach, spoke at the Local Planning Agency’s meeting on Dec. 6. He said he doesn’t expect local zoning regulations in the town to change significantly in the coming months.

“There are some duplexes, there’s a few triplexes and quads worked in there over the years,” Green said in reference to zoning in Fort Myers Beach. For the majority of the time, you will see single- family homes.

Joanne Semmer, who has lived near Fort Myers Beach for more than 50 years, has been trying to stop one such project. She lives a stone’sthrow from the town’s commercial fishing docks, and is the president of a local environmental organization.

Semmer and her brother sued Lee County in 2020 after they were denied permission to build an apartment complex across the street from her home. The development would increase the times when people go to evacuate, so the judge ruled in Semmer’s favor.

The chapel-by-the-sea community is functional, but the storm’s impact is unpredictable: Atterholt makes a functional paradise

The oldest church on the island, Chapel by the Sea, also now is just ruins. “You can see how the front of the sanctuary was just devastated.” But the storm’s impact was unpredictable. “On the front of the church,” he says, “you see this beautiful pristine stained-glass window that was perfectly untouched.”

Atterholt is living in one of those newer homes. A town with more than 6,000 people has only a third of its population able to return since the storm. A few hotels have begun welcoming guests. The beaches are open, although a red tide algae bloom has led to big fish kills. There are food trucks, but few other amenities for visitors.

By next year, Atterholt vows things will be different. He says, “We’re going to have what I call a functional paradise once again.” The town will be open for business and ready for Spring Break in 2024 according to him.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/28/1165410279/hurricane-ian-fort-myers-beach-slow-rebuilding

An Islander’s View of Hurricane Sandy. “I Need Almost As Many Sheets as You Need,” Eddie Doster, president and CEO, Jeff Boykin, chairman and chief executive officer

At Beach Baptist Church on a recent morning, a line of cars snaked down the street for a giveaway of something nearly every homeowner here needs, drywall. Charlie Doster took the maximum available, 25 sheets saying, “I need probably five times this many.”

Doster’s home was flooded, and he is fixing it himself. He’s staying nearby but estimates it will be at least six months until he’s back in his house. He chuckled when asked if his insurance helped. “No,” he says. “I think we got $700 you know which doesn’t go far.”

It’s a story you hear a lot. Most of the damage on the beach occurred during the storm surge, but only those with flood insurance got a lot of payouts. Despite winds over 150 miles per hour, homeowners here have had a harder time with their windstorm claims. Officials here say slow and inadequate insurance payouts are hurting recovery and forcing many long-time residents to sell and leave the island.

Legislation designed to prop up the state’s troubled insurance industry is being supported by Florida’s governor. He says that insurance companies are being investigated for how they handle claims. At a recent news conference he claimed that anyone who isn’t meeting obligations should be held accountable.

Doug Miller has been giving out a free breakfast and lunch at Beach Baptist Church since the day after the storm. He is the owner of a locally owned chain of restaurants. “I have talked to tens of thousands of people,” he says. “And I’ve talked to two that have had a positive outcome.”

Big changes are underway on Fort Myers Beach. A huge new resort, Margaritaville, was under construction when Ian hit. It’s scheduled to open later this year. The Pink Shell Beach Resort has cranes and jackhammers. The owner of the resort believes that as bad as the hurricanes was, they provide the island with an opportunity to build for the future. It’s a chance to do maybe 40 years of development in what will probably be four or five years.

The housing for his employees is something that he’s worried about. In the storm, Pink Shell lost two cottages it used for workforce housing. Now, Boykin says, some employees are commuting to the island from homes 30 or 40 miles away. “Everybody is faced with this situation,” he says.

Some of the workforce homes on Sanibel Island which were destroyed in the storm were supported by the city. The homes will be rebuilt, and the city is working to add more. She says, “We had an issue before Ian. Now, by Ian it’s just magnified to such a degree that we have to…make sure people who want to work and live here can afford to.”

He says, “Our push for that is that we can get kids into those apartments that then funnel (them) into the school system. We’d love to see the school come back on the island. But to do that, we’re going to have to provide houses for those families to live in.”

Town officials are working on a new comprehensive plan that will determine what the new version of Fort Myers Beach will be. The height limit will be raised and the new hotels and condo buildings will be taller. He doesn’t think it will be like Miami. “I don’t think you’ll see the skyrises. It will change because everybody’s going to have to build up because FEMA requires that now. And that will create a different flavor here because you won’t see so many of the old ground level cottages.” Buildings need to be higher to protect against flooding in future storm events.