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Ian

Oh boy, Fort Myers and areas south and southeast of there took a heavy pounding from Hurrican Ian. I know some of our members live in that area as well along the I-4 corridor that took a beating overnight. Coastal and inland flooding in a wide swath across the state. Lots of people affected.

Prayers for our brothers and sisters in need.
 
I hope they all check in when they can. I know that area have power outages, cell towers out, Orlando and Kissimmee major flooding from rain. Florida Turnpike is shutdown in both directions due to 4+ feet of flooding. Numerous roads and causeways no longer exist.Just some wind at my house now and only received a couple of inches of rain.
 
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Thanks to all of the forum members here who checked in on us all and kept us in your thoughts and prayers. All very much appreciated.

If you have the ability to volunteer, donate, anything at all, to the SW Florida recovery effort of your choice, that too would be appreciated by many (it is not to benefit me; I am fine and have the means to recover from anything). I'd be uncomfortable endorsing one charitable org over the other and it would likely violate the site rules in any case (and I no longer know which orgs are reliable and use money wisely...I am volunteering my time and labor as well as some monetary donations).

My family is fine. I have a new house built to Cat 5 code and I have my property cleaned up and lanai furniture back out already. We are lucky, I believe blessed, but the amount of devastation here is indescribable. The pictures in the media don't capture the magnitude effectively. A couple we know rode it out and it ended horrifically. The husband was found hanging on to a tree and his wife is missing. Hopefully they will find her alive in the debris field.

Another friend of mine, a local business owner employing a couple of hundred folks, suffered terrible damage to his personal residence, business, and his vehicles are all gone. My last partner from law enforcement had his house swept away...and it was built to current code which is supposed to withstand a Cat 5. Storm surge and wind got it and swept it out to the Gulf.

Fort Myers Beach is pretty much destroyed. If you know the Lani Kai resort you can now see the Gulf, through the structure, from the front of the building. It looks like the restaurant is completely gone (maybe covered by sand?). The marked channels in the Gulf require evaluation as the floor has changed with all the sand and debris pushed in and pulled out and they may not be navigable.

I've been a member here for over 5 years. I hope that I have come across as a levelheaded and honest person. I say that hoping that my characterization of this being even worse than is being reported in the media is credible. Any assistance that any of you are able to provide to the community here would be welcome.

I am going to try to put something together here for a charity ride. I am not the best project manager but I'll give it my best and ask for help here when I get it going.

Thanks again for all of the kind sentiments.


Mike
 
Even though I am up here in Williston, I can get the local news out of Orlando (channel 51 or fox 35). They have been covering the devastation. The storm surge up the river at Fort Myers destroyed concrete piers and stacked boats on top of each other up to 18 miles from the coast. Still over 700,000 households without power.
 
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