(Note to reader: All photos, outside of the hurricane above, were taken by myself.)
Here is my experience surviving Hurricane Ian. Don’t know whether I should call it “surviving”, compared to other people. My fiancé Dr. Cindy Banyai and I, along with her three children, fared very well compared to others who are dead now or lost everything that they had. We are fortunate, mainly because of the location that we live, in Buckingham, which is an area of southwest Florida, on the east side of Interstate 75, about twenty miles away from the coast. Although we are not too far from the Caloosahatchee River where a possible storm surge could have occurred, we were ok.
We lost power around 4pm on Wednesday September 28. Around the same time cell phones started to get spotty service. Also, internet went down. We used a battery-operated radio that my grandmother had given me years ago to get news of the storm. The street was flooded to the point that it would be somewhat difficult to get out, coming a little bit up the driveway. At one point the winds started to pick up and the whole house seemed to start creaking. I told my fiancé and her three children that we needed to go into our bedroom closet to wait out the storm. We hunkered down in the closet for six hours. I came out many times into the house to get the radio, get snacks and drinks, or to periodically check the outside for flooding. The only place I could somewhat see outside, because of hurricane shutters installed on the windows, was through a small area between the shutter and a window next to the front door.
Front of our house, early on in the storm.
Cindy wrote this on the door of our house, before the hurricane got bad.
After a while the storm seemed to die down. We came out of the closet into the bedroom for a little bit and had an ice cream party. Cindy had gone out into the kitchen and brought into the bedroom whatever ice cream we had, and bowls. I shuttered up the windows before the storm. One panel on the front window became unattached but didn’t completely come off. It was slapping up against the house, making the sound of the storm worse than it seemed.
Texting on my cell phone was intermittent but was able to keep in contact with my parents, then when the storm was dying down, I lost total coverage. My dad’s friend Glenn Fuselier from Louisiana, called a couple of times, once right before the storm hit, to ask if we were ok. He also said that he had just talked to my dad in south Fort Myers. He called later during the storm saying that he couldn’t get ahold of him. I tried to text my dad but no response and so I tried to call and was able to talk to him. My dad mentioned that he believed that part of the roof was damaged. About a couple months before, he had just recently installed hurricane windows, so my parents were able to see the storm out of their windows. Later, I was in no communication with him since my cell service didn’t work. This coincided with the storm surge that was about to hit their area. At this point I became concerned. At points I had to communicate by way of Mr. Fuselier to keep in touch with my parents. I called Mr. Fuselier to call my parents to let them know we were ok, and Mr. Fuselier would call me back.
When I was able to go out on the morning of Thursday September 29, I looked around the house to assess the damage. Luckily there was not hardly any damage. Because of the shutters being on the windows, there was a sense of a lot of damage because of the sounds we heard from outside without being able to see. A gutter on the front of our house was pulled off from the storm and ended up in our backyard. The lanai didn’t get any damage like I thought although it sounded like it was being torn to shreds. The funniest thing was that a child’s toy ended up in our backyard which was not ours. I later would put it out in the front yard with a sign saying “this was in our backyard after Ian. Not ours.” At this point, it still hasn’t been claimed.
Our fence damage in the back yard, which I was quickly able to fix.
The front of our house after the hurricane. Notice the shutter broken off that banged against the house during the storm.
I wrote this on September 29, the same day. “I feel a permanency about today. Places that I used to hang out at are gone, permanently. The radio is stating that most of Fort Myers Beach is gone. The Fort Myers Pier is gone. My favorite restaurant, the Plaka, is gone. Most of what is Times Square is gone. The Sanibel Causeway is broken apart with no way for people to get on and off the island. This is a storm that has changed the Southwest Florida society permanently. A sadness prevails my soul with a sense of hopelessness.”
We got power back surprisely early. On Friday September 30, just before 9 in the morning, our power was restored. I happened to walk out to the front yard and noticed that my neighbor’s generator was running. Before the storm, my neighbor mentioned that if we needed to hook up to her generator we could. Because their generator had been sitting for five years, since Hurricane Irma, gas still sat in it, and they had trouble getting it started. They were able to finally get it started about ten minutes before the power came back on. I told them, having to yell because of the generator running “we have power over next door.” They said that they didn’t know because they had shut off the breaker to their house. I found it funny that they had just gotten it started ten minutes before the power came on. The weather after Hurricane Ian was some of the best we’ve had in recent days. It’s ironic. One day it is hell, with winds and rain, and then the following day it is the nicest weather with temperatures in the upper 60s and a slight breeze, nice enough weather to keep windows open at night, especially for those people who didn’t still have power.
This same Friday Cindy, myself and her friend Aleathea went out to help people. I asked if we could stop by my parents’ house and drive by the Edison estates where I work. I still hadn’t heard conformation on whether my parents were ok after the supposed storm surge. As we were sitting in the driveway, we were attempting to strap an American flag to the back of Aleathea’s truck. A neighbor, who was a conservative, came over to help and gave us tie wraps. She said that she might not be voting for Cindy but wanted to help because we were all human and believed in our quest to get supplies out. We drove down Palm Beach Boulevard. Traffic was awful getting from our place to Highway 31 because the light at 31 and Palm Beach was out. Very few gas stations were open. The ones that were had lines of people waiting for gas. Getting onto I 75 to drive to my parents, we saw that off the Martin Luther King exit, the 711-gas station was open and there was a line of cars waiting all the way to the exit of the interstate. Many trees were down all over the place. The TopGolf place off Colonial Boulevard, a famous driving range, had all its netting torn to shreds. Upon getting onto Daniels Parkway, many lights were out causing confusion on the roads. There was a lot of flooding in areas, mostly off the main road.
The TopGolf driving range off of Interstate 75 at Colonial Boulevard.
A leaning palm tree in my parents neighborhood.
On entering my parents’ neighborhood, many people’s yards were messed up with debris from trees with a few downed ones variously spread throughout some people’s yards. Most of the houses looked intact though. Upon parking and going toward the garage my parents came out and I hugged them. I was so glad to see them after not being able to communicate effectively. My parents’ mango tree was split almost in half in their back yard. Debris was all over their property. My dad was using a generator, which he put on the front walkway, to power the frig, television and charge up phones.
After realizing my parents were ok, we drove toward Harlem Heights, just down Gladiolus Drive from where my parents live. We stopped off at a food bank. We had brought some food and supplies along to hand out but when we got there, a group of people were cooking food for the local people in this little community. We offered to take bread, soup, water, and other items to nearby trailer parks in nearby Iona that were destroyed. This was on the way to the Sanibel Causeway. We drove farther down Gladiolus and crossed McGregor. We entered some of these communities. It seemed that not many people were there. A few were. Most people had evacuated during the storm, hopefully. I mentioned at one point that who knows, there might be dead people in some of these trailers. The few people that were outside of their trailers were grateful for us bringing food. One trailer park was especially decimated and smelled awful because of busted sewage lines. We only found one man there who, when we offered food, started crying. He said that people had come into the neighborhood but not to help, probably insurance people to assess damage or rescuers who were looking for dead or injured people. But he was alive. None offered to help. Aleathea gave a hug to the crying man. One trailer park had a trailer that the storm had sheared off one side to show a kitchen, open to the elements. A stove, sink, cabinet that still had family photos taped to the door. In this same park, I saw a dead cat, one leg resting on the lower railing of a porch, lying on its side. Apparently, it had drowned in the flood and came to rest on this porch when the water receded. What was interesting was many golf carts were sitting in front of the trailers, undisturbed. I’m not sure if they were parked there after the storm or just survived intact.
Notice the kitchen visible in this photo. Pictures still hang from the cabinet.
We drove as far as we could toward Sanibel Island. The causeway had been destroyed so we went as far as a barrier that was set up by police. The officers there told us that there was a launch rescuing people from the island and bringing them to mainland and then transporting them to loved ones who were waiting on the side of the road, that we noticed.
The police barrier at the Sanibel Causeway.
We drove down to Bunche Beach nearby. Several trees were down blocking one lane of road. A portion of a deck and railing from a walkway nearby stood just off the road in a dilapidated state. We got out to go walk on the beach. Several other people were there doing the same thing that we were, checking out the devastation. A couple of them seemed to be at the beach for recreation, sitting in a beach chair with bathing suits on, as if nothing ever happened.
The piece of decking that floated onto the road to Bunche Beach.
Looking toward Fort Myers Beach, on the right, from Bunche Beach. The bridge going there from the mainland is in the middle of the photo. Didn't seem to hardly be any traffic.
On the morning of October 1, 2022, I decided to go visit my parents and help them with cleaning up their backyard and getting a tarp put on their roof, which had some minor damage but would be worse if another good rain came along. I am on a text feed with my co-workers at the Edison Ford Winter Estates. We look out for each other. My co-worker Megan mentioned that anyone who needs tarp to put up on roofs, she had some at her house off Briarcliff in south Fort Myers. I texted her asking I could use some. I got the dimensions of the damaged roof from my dad and then headed over to Megan’s. Spoke with her for a little bit. She mentioned hearing rumors that an entire neighborhood off Island Park Road in south Fort Myers had been trapped during the storm and they were all wiped out, with many bodies floating in the water there. Even as I am writing this, there are reports of many bodies. At this point, the Lee County death toll stands at 45, but it is believed that the toll is much higher. All I can say is that the state of Florida suppressed the number of dead during the Covid-19 epidemic.
Getting back to Megan, I figured out the dimensions of the tarp she had. I decided to take two pieces, roughly about 60 by 20 feet. I brought it to my parents and then started working on my parents’ yard, mainly the back, which had the most damage. Their mango tree had a good portion that was split from the main part. Dad mentioned that people had come the day before to cut the big portions up and they put it on the curb in the front yard. I called a guy who had tried to help me check on my parents when I was in Buckingham who was driving around helping people with their roofs. He had someone come out later that day. He was willing to tarp the roof if we signed paperwork promising for us to be his contractor to repair the roof. The salesman was a go between from the insurance company to the roofers. We had heard in the past that we shouldn’t trust salesman because they could scam people. My mother was adamant about not signing anything. After all, we had the tarp and just wanted someone to put it on. After the salesman left, my mother walked around the neighborhood. She had seen other people with their tarp on already. She knocked on a door of her nearby neighbor Charles and asked them where they had gotten people to tarp their roof. They mentioned that they did it themselves and would come over and look at ours. A little later Charles showed up and told us that they would tarp it for free because we were neighbors. I believe that Charles was a member of a church, probably Methodist, and they were trying to help as much as possible. I told my parents that after the job, they should at least give them some money or a gift card for their services. Church people are so nice when it comes to disasters like this.
At one point when I was taking a break from yard work, my parents and I were talking about how difficult it was to get sandbags for my dad. It was flashed on the news that sandbags would be available at various fire stations in their area. But when my dad went out to a nearby fire station, it was closed, and no sandbags were available. He went to several different locations until he decided to fill sandbags with dirt and mulch that they had bought recently for gardening. Fortunately, they didn’t get flooding in their neighborhood.
Photo of my parents back yard with the fence leaning in the direction that the wind was coming. Mango tree in the background.
I decided to spent Saturday night with my parents because I planned to come back early the next morning to help more with the yard and to observe the tarp being put on. I contacted Cindy to tell her about staying. My parents still had no power at that point, so we all slept with the windows open. The church people came in the morning and completed the tarp job within a matter of a couple of hours. While they were working, my parents neighbor caddy corner in the back poked his head in asking where we got the guys to work on the roof. I yelled up at Charles and told him “You have more business!” Charles said, “oh boy” and I got the man’s information and gave it to Charles. After they left, Charles was on the roof of this guy’s house. I continued working on cleaning my parents’ yard, pulling up roots, weed eating, raking mango leaves up, which were the majority, and taking breaks in between. Many roofing tiles littered both the front and back yard, mostly stuck under bushes. I was mostly on the phone during my breaks responding to people who had texted me about my welfare. I got done with the yard, including cleaning up the side portions, about 1:30. Megan had offered, from 2pm to curfew, if anyone wanted to come over for a beer and spaghetti, they could. After getting done with the yard, I decided to stop off for a couple of hours at Megan’s to take her up on the offer. Afterward I headed home to Buckingham and cleaned up my own yard, including cutting it. When I left my parents, they still didn’t have power.
Back of my parents' yard after the tarp had been put on and most of it cleaned up.
On Monday October 3, I went over to the Edison Ford Winter Estates for my first day of work back after the storm. I knew this wasn’t going to be my regular job as a curator but a cleanup operation in which we all had to contribute. That day, which was yesterday, was a grueling day and overwhelming. There is so much damage to the estates that it seems to be unsurmountable. Employees are working all over the property, being assigned to different areas. I was assigned to work on the area around the laboratory, cleaning up broken limbs and raking leaves. In fact, for the past three days, I have been raking or picking up debris almost constantly to the point that I decided to take today off and relax before starting tomorrow again. This would give me a chance to get caught up on things here at the house and to write this blog.
There are so many limbs and leaves on the estate grounds that it didn’t seem to put a dent in it by the time we were done yesterday. I went in at 8am. Our CEO Michael Flanders gave a short explanation of what we were supposed to do. One of the security people, Kathy, mentioned that she noticed some ceiling tiles in a dumpster near the Water Management building, the building where I work in the curatorial department. Immediately all the curators thought about our precious archives there, especially the rare book library where many of Thomas Edison’s original books that he owned, were stored in a climate-controlled setting. Toward the end of the day, the power came on in the water management building and I went over to see if we could use the card system to get in. I waited for my fellow curator Matt to show up. We were able to get in successfully and found that everything was fine. Humidity was high due to the power being off, at about 75 percent, but otherwise no damage. Ideally the humidity should be at 40 percent to protect the archives. We use dehumidifiers to help in this process. We talked together and realized that if the rare books were waterlogged, we would have to freeze them, to stop the moisturization process. That would be kind of hard with having no power and on top of that, no ice. Only thing we thought about was bringing the possibly damaged books to any homes that we knew had power, to store them in freezers.
By the Banyan tree.
Area by ticket office.
On the riverside. Edison estate in background.
CEO Michael Flanders and a member of security Kathy cleaning up debris around the parking lot area.
Throughout the day, we found out about some tragic news. Marti Campbell, who was an employee of the Edison Ford Winter Estates, is missing. She lived on Fort Myers Beach and decided to ride out the storm. Her house was totally washed away. We heard through the grapevine that she was trying to ride out the storm in her bathtub on the second floor. She apparently wanted to stay because she couldn’t find her insurance papers. She is most likely gone. She worked in the book room a couple of days a week and organized the books that we sold in the gift shop. I’m hoping she is found. Another thing that was tragic. Employees have been finding photographs of people on the estate grounds in the debris, apparently from homes on the river that flooded. One of our security people found an entire photo album on the property as well. As we are breaking up for our morning meeting, a groundskeeper takes out of his pocket a couple of 5 by 7 photos and asked if we knew who they were. No one knew.
Around 11am I decided to ask our CEO Michael Flanders if we needed to get lunch for the 25 something people we had helping us with the cleanup. I mentioned I could go to the nearby Publix, which was open, and get some food. He asked if I had a credit card and I told him I did. He told me to keep the receipt because I could be reimbursed. No sandwiches were at Publix when I arrived, which I wanted to get, but they were cooking fried chicken, so I got fried chicken, potato salad and lemonade. Some of the employees mentioned that this was the first hot meal they had since the storm.
The notice of Marti Campbell put on Facebook. She is still missing.
At one point while I was working, I decided to walk across to the estate side of the property near the Caloosahatchee River to see the damage. The study did get some water damage in the building. Megan opened the study to find muddy water covering about half of the floor. She immediately got a mop and broom and swept the mud and water out and then mopped up the water remaining, which caused a little bit of warping on the floorboards. The porch was covered over a foot with debris and more debris was compacted against the porch on the riverside. I took a rake and pulled dirt, bamboo shoots, plastic cups, beer bottles and other debris that had washed up from the river. We were finally able to clear the porch so it could dry out. A boat even drifted onto the property in the storm surge and still sits near the river.
Several of the staff at the estates lost everything they had. One of our security people lived in an apartment building right next to the Burroughs home in downtown Fort Myers, next to the river. His apartment was inundated up to the ceiling almost. His parents had lived on a boat in a downtown harbor nearby. Luckily, they were all able to evacuate to a relative nearby. Their boat sank in the storm. One of our curators lived on the river, farther down McGregor Boulevard going toward Fort Myers Beach. He lived near his father. Both his house and his fathers were severely damaged by flooding. A total loss. The family had a pontoon boat on the river, housed at the father’s house. It is now sitting in the middle of his yard, washed up by the storm surge.
In conclusion, I had always wanted to help in a disaster, and this is my chance. I am grateful for what I have done so far. When I lived in Atlanta, I had heard about the 2008 tornado that destroyed many of the downtown buildings. The cylindrical Westin Hotel, one of the tallest buildings in the skyline, was pockmarked by broken windows. Glass was all over the streets and it was dangerous to travel to that area. I wanted to help then but no one was allowed to enter parts of the city where damage had occurred.
I’ve lived through many hurricanes throughout my life, this one being the worst. Just read at 2:13 today that Cape Coral has just gotten power after a week. I remember when I was young that hurricanes, depending on the severity of it, would knock out power for weeks at a time. Louisiana, back when I was young in my area of St. Mary Parish, had above ground power lines, so it was no wonder that power would be out for great lengths of time.
Even as I am writing this right now on the back lanai of my Buckingham home, I am hearing sirens frequently in the area, most likely responding to some emergency due to the hurricane. Helicopters frequently fly over all areas of southwest Florida. A natural disaster of this magnitude effects all people, regardless of income. EVERYONE is worthy of assistance and of human dignity. I am so proud of the people of southwest Florida and other areas who are coming to our assistance. It makes me believe in the power of humanity and that, regardless of race, religion, or politics, that we can come together.
To check out more, I put two pieces of raw footage together that can be accessed on youtube.
Here is a link to footage I took driving with Cindy to the trailer parks.
Here is a link to footage I took at the Edison Ford Winter Estates after all of the damage.
Thanks for learning!
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