Hurricane Ian carved a path of destruction across Florida, trapping people in flooded homes, cutting off the only bridge to a barrier island, destroying a historic waterfront pier and knocking out power to 2.5 million people as it dumped rain over a huge area on Thursday.
The area most impacted by Ian is a major winter and vacation destination for Minnesotans. Many retirees choose the Fort Myers area for their “snowbird” home and the Twins Spring Training facilities are a big draw for fans.
The cohost of WCCO’s “The Huddle” on Sunday morning is Pete Najarian. Najarian and his wife Lisa have a home between Fort Myers and Tampa.
She told WCCO’s Vineeta Sawkar Thursday that they are very concerned about what they’ll find.
“We're on a barrier island that the road gets flooded,” says Lisa Najarian. “So there's not a lot of movement on that area. We have some neighbors that stayed, and I've gotten a little bit of word that our house seems to be intact from what they can see from next door. But beyond that, I don't really know. It’s disheartening not to know.”
Najarian said people in Florida are telling her this is the worst storm the Gulf Coast of Florida has ever seen.
President Joe Biden formally issued a disaster declaration Thursday, and Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the agency is supporting search and rescue efforts. The U.S. Coast Guard also began rescues on southwest Florida’s barrier islands early Thursday, as soon as winds died down, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said.
A chunk of the Sanibel Causeway fell into the sea, cutting off access to the barrier island where 6,300 people normally live. How many heeded mandatory evacuation orders before the storm surge washed over the island wasn't known.
South of Sanibel, towering waves destroyed the historic beachfront pier in Naples, tearing out even the pilings underneath. “Right now, there is no pier,” said Penny Taylor, a commissioner in Collier County, which includes Naples.
WCCO Chief Meteorologist Paul Douglas says the damage from a storm this large is going to take a long time to recover from.
“It's going to take months, I think, to get these communities back up,” Douglas told the WCCO Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar. “Maybe a few years to get things back to some semblance of normal. If Hurricane Michael, which hit the panhandle up around Panama City, was any guide, there are still homes up there that have not been replaced or repaired.”
The storm was a worst-case scenario for southwest Florida according to Douglas.
“Just based on this thing coming ashore as almost a Category five, I think we’re going to be shocked, I think we’re going to be horrified, when we see the full extent of the damage,” Douglas predicts. “Until you see the pictures, the videos, the aerial images, as soon as it’s safe, when we see that video, I think it’s going to be gasp-worthy.”
Douglas predicts the actual cost of Hurricane Ian will run into the tens of billions of dollars.
“Folks down there are going to be hurting a long time,” Douglas said.
The hurricane moved across Florida dumping rain on Orlando and the Cape Canaveral area before moving out over the Atlantic as a tropical storm Thursday. It is expected to strengthen again to a category one hurricane before turning northwest over South Carolina.
Meanwhile, hundreds of hospital patients were being evacuated from facilities across the Fort Myers region Thursday after damage from Hurricane Ian cut off water supplies. One area hospital began assessing the full damage from ferocious winds that tore away parts of its roof and swamped its emergency room.
Other health care systems in Ian's path, from the state's Gulf coast to the Atlantic, were also moving patients because of flood waters.
Even as the problem was too much water in much of the state, at least nine hospitals in southwest Florida had the opposite problem.
“We have one large health system in southwest Florida that is without water in all of their facilities. And so they are fast approaching a point where they will not be able to safely take care of their patients. So that is an urgent focus to get those patients transferred,” said Mary Mayhew, the president of the Florida Hospital Association.
Mayhew said more 1,200 patients were being evacuated.
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