FORT MYERS, Florida — Joy McCormack stood across the street from a row of mobile homes, townhouses and apartments that were now below knee-deep floodwaters.
She watched her neighbors wade to and from their homes, hoping to salvage something from the wreckage. She wondered how her house in the nearby Iona Ranch mobile home park had fared after Hurricane Ian, but she knew the devastation had probably caused that too.
“I think mine is going to be a total loss,” McCormack said. “It’s the only house I have, and when it’s gone…”
Her voice died away.
For Mitch Stough and his brother Mike, Fort Myers Beach was their livelihood. Now it is destroyed.
“It’s leveled out,” Mitch told The News-Press, part of the USA TODAY Network.
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Fort Myers Beach, along with the other Lee County barrier islands, took the brunt of Hurricane Ian’s attack on the Florida coast. The storm, a Category 4 when it made landfall, produced gusts of wind of 150 mph and a towering storm surge that swept through the center of the city.
Fort Myers, with more than 92,000 residents, is a popular city for tourists and spring breakers. The nearby small coastal town of Fort Myers Beach, full of beach bars and hotels and resorts, sits on skinny Estero Island, making it more vulnerable as Ian pounded the region. The city has a population of nearly 6,000.
The towns and villages there were some of the first to be scourged by the storm. Other parts of the state are still seeing heavy rainfall and have not yet moved out of Ian’s grip. Local officials, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and President Joe Biden, say the storm will be deadly and costly historically.
Mitch and Mike Stough took shelter on the third floor of the Estero Island Beach Club, where Mike worked. From there they had a front row view of the chaos. Waves poured down Estero Boulevard, destroying the lower floors of buildings and carrying vehicles away, they said. Their car went flying.
Mitch, who worked at the landmark Lani Kai resort, said the storm surge stripped the first floor of the vacation spot down to its structural elements.
“There’s nothing there,” he said. “Fort Myers Beach is gone.”
A few miles away, boats could be seen being thrown against the guardrails, torn from their storage yards. Closer to the Matanzas Pass bridge, entire marina buildings were shattered, wooden docks twisted and shattered. Deputies blocked access to Estero Island, saying the bridge was unsafe to cross.
On the island of San Carlos, rows of houses were destroyed by wind and water, shingles stripped, windows shattered. A boat blocked the middle of the road, dragged down a driveway by the storm. Residents, horrified, embarked on the monumental task of clearing and picking up chunks of debris from their lawns.
For Mitch and Mike Stough, there was no going back: they said they planned to go elsewhere.
“There’s nothing for us here. Our jobs are gone. Our car is gone. Nothing is open,” he said. “It’s going to take a few years to get this thing back in shape.”
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Sanibel Island sees ‘biblical’ destruction after Ian
A few miles to the west, a section of the causeway connecting Sanibel Island to mainland Florida had fallen into the sea, closing access to the barrier island, home to 6,300 people.
There the destruction was almost total. Aerial photos from ABC News show houses with damaged or missing roofs, some that had drifted from their foundations, and rows of houses surrounded by storm surge water.
“Sanibel is destruction. … It was hit by a truly biblical storm surge,” DeSantis said.
He said rescuers were working to get those left behind on the island to safety. Two deaths have been confirmed on Sanibel Island, officials said Thursday evening, part of the total death toll of 14 in the state, though the number was expected to rise dramatically.
Further south, the historic beach pier in Naples was destroyed, with even the posts beneath it ripped loose. “Right now there is no pier,” said Penny Taylor, a Collier County commissioner.
Stan Pentz heard loud and clear the thump of rainwater pouring into his Iona Ranch mobile home in Fort Myers on Wednesday. He said the water quickly rose up the canals in front of his house before bursting through his sliding doors. Pentz held onto the blinds and tried desperately to get out as his house was filled with water.
Once outside, the current dragged him up and around his house to some bushes, where he stayed for three hours. The rubble slammed into him until he could swim to a building for shelter.
He’s already been to his house to try and save what he can, but it’s no use: “It’s all underwater.”
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Contributions: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fort Myers Beach ‘disappeared’ after Hurricane Ian decimates Florida coast
