Eight months ago, chef Michael Cellura had a restaurant job and had just moved into a fancy new camper home on Fort Myers Beach in southwest Florida. Now, after Hurricane Ian swept all that away, he lives in his older Infiniti sedan with a 15-year-old long-haired chihuahua named Ginger.
Like hundreds of others, Cellura was left homeless after the Category 5 hurricane blasted the barrier island last September with ferocious winds and storm surge as high as 15 ft. Like many, he has struggled to navigate insurance payouts, understand federal and state assistance bureaucracy, and simply find a place to shower.
"There are a lot of us like me that are displaced with nowhere to go," said Cellura during a recent interview next to his car in a commercial parking lot alongside other storm survivors housed in recreational vehicles, a converted school bus, even a shipping container.
The Associated Press reported May 29 that recovery is far from complete in hard-hit Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel Island and Pine Island, with this year's Atlantic hurricane season officially beginning June 1.
This year's tropical storm season forecast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), calls for 12 to 17 named storms, five to nine becoming hurricanes, and one to four powering into major hurricanes with winds greater than 110 mph.
Another weather pattern that can suppress Atlantic storms is the El Nino warming expected this year in the Pacific Ocean, according to experts. Yet the increasingly warmer water in the Atlantic basin fueled by climate change could offset the El Nino effect, many scientists believe.
Demolition, Construction Bringing Area Back to Life
In southwest Florida, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, piles of debris are everywhere. Demolition and construction work is ongoing across the region. Trucks filled with sand rumble along to renourish the eroded beaches. Blank concrete slabs reveal where buildings, many of them once charming, decades-old structures that gave the towns their relaxed beach vibe, were washed away or torn down.
Ian claimed more than 156 lives in the United States, the vast majority in Florida, according to a comprehensive NOAA report on the hurricane.
In hard-hit Lee County — where Fort Myers Beach and the other seaside towns are located — 36 people died from drowning in storm surge and more than 52,000 structures suffered damage, including more than 19,000 destroyed or severely damaged, NOAA revealed.
Even with state and federal help, the scale of the disaster has overwhelmed these small towns that were not prepared to deal with so many problems at once, said Chris Holley, former interim Fort Myers Beach town manager, in speaking with the AP.
"Probably the biggest challenge is the craziness of the debris removal process," Holley explained. "We'll be at it for another six months. Permitting is a huge, huge problem for a small town, too. The staff just couldn't handle it."
Residents Determined to Overcome Ian's After Affects
Then there are the battles with insurance companies and navigating how to obtain state and federal aid, which is running into the billions of dollars.
Robert Burton and his partner, Cindy Lewis, whose mobile home was totaled by storm surge, spent months living with friends and family until finally a small apartment was provided through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). They can stay there until March 2024 while they look for a new home.
Their mobile home park next to the causeway to Sanibel Island is a ghost town, filled with flooded-out homes soon to be demolished, many of them with ruined furniture inside, clothes still in closets, art still on the walls. Most homes had at least three feet of water inside.
The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation estimated the total insured loss from Ian in the state was almost $14 billion, with more than 143,000 claims still open without payment or claims paid but not fully settled as of March 9, the AP found.
In Sanibel, the lingering damage is not quite as widespread as it is in Fort Myers Beach, although many businesses remain shuttered as they are repaired, and storm debris is everywhere. Seven local retail stores have moved into a shopping center in mainland Fort Myers, hoping to continue to operate while awaiting insurance payouts, construction permits, or both before returning to the island.
They call themselves the "Sanibel Seven," according to Rebecca Binkowski, owner of MacIntosh Books and Paper, a Sanibel fixture since 1960. She said her store had no flood insurance and lost about $100,000 worth of books and furnishings in the storm.
"The fact of the matter is, we can get our businesses back up and running but without hotels to put people in, without our community moving back, it's going to be hard to do business," she said. "You hope this is still a strong community."
Yet, the sense among many survivors is one of hope for the future, even if it is sometimes hard to imagine.
Cellura has a new job at another location of the Nauti Parrot restaurant on the mainland. Insurance only paid off the outstanding loan amount on his destroyed camper and he did not qualify for FEMA aid, leaving him with virtually nothing to start over amidst quickly rising apartment rental costs.
But, after 22 years on the island, he is not giving up.
"I believe that things will work out. I'm strong. I'm a survivor," he told the AP. "Every day I wake up, it's another day to just continue on, and try to make things better."
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