Two years after Hurricane Ian left almost every home and business in ruins and killed 14 people, this small barrier island dodged a bullet.
After most heeded warnings to flee the potentially devastating threat of Hurricane Milton, residents and shopkeepers began returning Thursday to find a muddy mess and lots to clean up or repair. But not the massive damage that could have been. The doors will open again soon.
Still, another close call with catastrophe left some on the little island an hour north of Naples questioning whether it’s time to just move on.
“After Ian and this, I’m not staying here, I’m done. I lost two cars and lots of other things,” said Nir Cohen, owner of the beachware clothing store H2O. “It’s difficult to come back and face the reality. There are two ways I see it. It’s either material or your life and material I can replace.”
The physical scars from Ian are largely gone but the psyche ones remain. On Sept. 28, 2022, Ian’s 150 mile-per-hour winds and 10-foot surge slammed into the six-square-mile spit of land so ferociously that video showed the homes floating away and being enveloped by what became just another part of the Gulf of Mexico. Rescue crews spent days in the wreckage, hunting and finding bodies.
The surge from Hurricane Milton, which came ashore at about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Siesta Key with winds of about 120 miles-per-hour and bout 112 miles north at Siesta Key was serious but didn’t come with the force of a bulldozer. By Thursday morning most roads on the island were passable, bulldozers had pushed mounds of sand and mud to the side. Still, the surge on Fort Myers Beach, according to the National Weather Service, was almost six feet.
Residents on Thursday were pressure cleaning their properties, many of which were filled with sand and mud on the ground floor. Many shopkeepers had enlisted the help of family or friends or workers to clean out the stench from the mud and saltwater that lined the floors and walls of their businesses.
But in most cases, it was just a cleanup. By noon police were permitting residents and the media over the Mantanzas Bridge, the main venue in and out of the island. The properties weren’t ruined like two years earlier. And most importantly, no one’s life was lost.
James Barker, 61, was one of the very few residents who stayed on the island through Hurricane Milton. The Bethlehem, Pennsylvania native built his three-story home about a block from the beach about a decade ago. He said he mostly rents it out, but comes down with family in the winter time.
He stayed away during Ian. He said next storm, he’s staying away, too.
Barker cleared out the ground floor of furniture before Milton surged mud into his home. He stayed upstairs as the winds howled and the Gulf of Mexico entered his property. Just in case he built a make-shift raft by putting a boogie-board on top of two floatation devices.
He also used a blue magic market to write down his name and date of birth on his left forearm — just as he was instructed to do by senior government officials.
“It was crazy. The wind was no joke. I’ll never do it again,” he said.
Meanwhile, back on FIfth Street in the town’s business district, Carlos Sanchez, 57, and his two nephews were cleaining out his two stores, an ice cream shop and Bella Mozzarella, the adjacent pizza place he owns. He said unlike Ian two years ago, everyone had plenty of time to protect their properties and leave.
Still, he said, the last two years have just been too painful to keep on going.
“This is nothing,” Sanchez said, wiping away his sweat while holding a couple of cutting devices. It was mostly cleanup except for a broken water heater that needed to be replaced.
“I’m just not evacuating anymoresmash bet,” he said. “For now, I have to clean up and re-open. But my plan is to sell.”