Hurricane Ian: One Year Later

36 • HURRICANE IAN: ONE YEAR LATER • 2023 FAMILIES fight on The Daily Sun/Venice Gondolier sought first person stories from our community. Some were heartbreaking. Some were uplifting. And, perhaps not surprising, many shared a variety of emotions and insights into coming through Hurricane Ian - that night, and still today. 'STILL NOT RECOVERED' We are still not recovered! We live in a trailer (we had to buy) in the front yard of our home. We left ahead of the storm coming and drive from Rotonda West to Sebring, thinking we'd we be safer inland. We were there on the third top floor when Ian hit as a Cat 3...there with live tornado warnings! All power went off and there was no emergency lighting! Hence, my husband fell in the dark down a flight of stairs. He complained if chest pain and he had a huge hematoma on his leg. He's on blood thinners. I called 911, but they had trouble getting there and could not get a stretcher up the three floors. So we stayed at motel. After a five-day stay there, we were given the OK to go home. What should have been a two hour drive, became nine hours because we had to go north, then west, then south to get home due to the flooding. We also had to drive through the flooded River Road, Highway 777, to get home. Interstate 75 was closed. The river water at times led us to single file on the road at times with the water up to our doors on the car. When we got home, we found our home was still flooded with black mold growing and what wasn't destroyed by water, was wind blown. Our pool cage was gone and our pool was dark brown in color with broken metal, trees, and all kinds of debris in the pool. We even had fish in the pool! We went to a shelter at Babcock Ranch for a few weeks until they closed - They were very helpful there. While at this shelter, an ambulance took my husband to be finally checked out at the ER and he was OK. Now with this shelter closing, we still couldn't go home, so we went to the Red Cross shelter. That was not so nice and after a few weeks, and being falsely accused of things I wasn't doing, but another woman who looked like me did do, we went home to the dust and black mold. FEMA had promised us a trailer, but then refused us at the end of November because I was on oxygen! The motels were all full in the area, so we stayed in our home and were now forced to buy an RV. We decided to buy a new one by advise of our second adjuster. That was a mistake! The RV has been nothing but a lemon! Things broke and are still broken, and (the dealership) is not fixing all things that are broken since Day One. We still are in the RV, as our home is still only stick walls and cement floors. All our furniture, clothes, and most personal items were destroyed and were thrown out. Our front curb pile of debris was as long as our ranch home and even higher in height. It filled two of those dumpster trucks! We had several contractors and a different adjuster, but they were more of a problem, than a help to us. So we are now our own contractor! We have had fake people come and try to swindle us to have them do some work in our home. But truth always came out. No license, fake companies, people saying they were from the company we called to do some work and they really weren't are done of the "living hell" we've been through. We are fighting insurance companies, both the home owners and the flood. We've had inspectors for this and for that by them, but they say nothing on coming through with the money to fix things! Not only do we fight with the insurance companies, but we have to fight the mortgage company to release any money the insurance companies do come through with! So we hired a lawyer, on advise if our adjuster. He was not told we have flood insurance by the adjuster, and the lawyer just wanted us to settle with the home owners! We did not do that! And still things are not fixed! We finally got that straightened out with him and we told him that the mortgage company is holding our money - even with estimates of what needs to be done! The lawyer told us to have our contractor fight the mortgage company because he wouldn't do that! We don't have a contractor! Sigh… meanwhile, we are going to food pantries to get food, we are upside down with our monthly bills to pay, we are maxed out on three credit cards just to eat! And we still have to pay a lawyer, an adjuster, and fix our home! The stress level has been beyond description…. But we are alive. - Robert and Glory Towns, Rotonda West 'FOREVER HOME' HIT HARD Following my retirement from the Air Force after a 22.5 year career and then working for Humana Military for another 11 years in Texas and Maryland, my wife Shauna and I, along with her handicapped brother decided to buy our forever home in Rotonda West. We packed our household and closed on our home loan on Sept. 9, 2022, and began making it our own, just in time for Ian to strike on Sept. 28! In fact, our first family visitors were with us through these events, my daughter Megan and her 11-month-old son, our grandson, Waylon. On Sept. 27, Megan assisted me in installing our storm shutters around the entire house, as we prepared for the storm. That evening, all five of us, including two dogs and a cat, decided to relocate to a Charlotte County shelter to wait out the approaching storm. Unfortunately, we quickly found that the shelter did not have any suitable arrangements for moms and babies, so we decided to go back to our home. The next morning, we awoke to the outer bands of Ian already making conditions unfavorable, and so at 9:30 a.m., we decided to all pack into two cars with our pets, and evacuate ahead of the storm making landfall; there was already 6 inches of water on our street and tropical force winds. We ended up driving to McIlnenny, just west of Jacksonville, and stayed at a hotel until we returned to Rotonda West on Sept. 30. What we found was devastating! We first observed that the two massive live oaks that were in our front yard had fallen onto the roof of our house, piercing the roof in at least seven places, including coming into our dining room, the front bedroom, and our garage. This resulted in torrential rain coming into our house for many hours, soaking everything, ceiling, walls, floors and most of our furnishings. In addition, the root ball of the trees, also ripped out the main water line to the house. In the back of our house, we found our pool cage crumpled into a ball and laying in our pool and backyard. Thankfully, we have homeowner's insurance through USAA, and they were out to our house within a week, filing both a wind and flood claims; in total, over $180,000 in damages. We have almost fully recovered, however, we are still awaiting our cabinets and countertops, in our kitchen and master bathroom. In spite of everything, and compared to a lot of others, we are blessed! - Joe Haggerty, Rotonda West LITTLE IN COMMON "Do you need any help?" said the blond woman who was walking three dogs past my house. With all the fences down, this was a common sight, but she was the only one who spoke to me. I was sitting on my front patio trying to catch the evening breeze two days after Hurricane Ian. I recognized her as a resident of the house a few doors down with the huge oak tree upended and lying across the street. We had never met, but my general impression had been that we had little in common. I was soon to learn how wrong I had been. Her request seemed ironic to me. My property had suffered the least damage of any on the street. Hers was among the worst. And yet, here she was offering help to me. But the reality was that I did indeed need assistance. I was 80 years old, lived alone, and physically unwell. In fact, I had been sitting there feeling overwhelmed by my inability to address the situation. So I said, "yes!" She immediately called a family friend who showed up about 5 minutes later. He was a general contractor who surveyed my damage and quoted a price that fell below my insurance deductible. That was a win/win situation: I didn't have to deal with a claim, and he would have some working cash immediately. But the help didn't stop there. They had a generator which meant a cool place to go and hot food to eat. They insisted I join them for supper. In the days and weeks to follow they found numerous ways to help me at no charge, asking nothing in return. Despite our different lifestyles and backgrounds, they declared they had fallen in love with me and I was the best thing that had happened in their lives, calling me their newly adopted "Mama." Was I suspicious of their motives? You bet! With all they needed to do to fix their property, why were they being so kind to me? But months have passed and no ulterior motives have surfaced. Their reward was that unidentifiable "something" that one gets out of helping others. We found commonality in simply being fellow human beings facing a crisis together. I thought that when electricity was restored my life would return to normal. Wrong again. The world around me is damaged and broken. Driving down streets lined with heaps of debris was depressing. Seeing or hearing about all the closed businesses is painful. Trying to navigate around a a town without street signs is challenging. So many people are still suffering in so many ways it has been hard not to feel guilty about my good fortune. I have this insidious fear that next time it will be "my turn." We all live with fear of the "next time." So many stories are worse than mine, but nevertheless, we were, and still are, all in this together. We have a lot in common. - Corlotta Crowell, Port Charlotte A TRAGIC LOSS My hurricane story is one of loss, but not the brick and mortar kind. My husband and I had moved here from Ohio 20 years ago so we could be closer to our grandchildren. We had experienced hurricanes here - notably Charley and Irma, which we rode out at home. In the months before Ian hit, my 83-year-old husband had experienced a decline in his health, with two falls resulting in hospital stays, followed by weeks in rehab facilities. But, after coming home in June, he was slowly becoming stronger, with visits from home health providers. He was doing well, especially with the help of his physical therapist. The therapist, a young man with three small children, seemed to have bonded with my husband, and he was regaining strength and some mobility. The days leading up to Ian are a blur in my mind. We had our shutters up, and we were definitely staying put in the house. The thought of evacuating with all the health care equipment my husband required, plus our beloved cat, was unthinkable to us. So the storm hit. We stayed in one room, hearing

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