UPDATED 11-4-22: We here at PIN were just able to access the internet 10/23/22. We were without city water for about a week then required to boil water until yesterday. We were without power up until about a week ago.
Running on generator for two hours at a time (at $4 a gal) in an attempt maintain refrigerator and freezer temperature. Running a generator for 24 hrs would cost about a hundred a day with no certainty of replenishment of the fuel if it ran out. Cell phones had little to no connectivity. A real taste of what it might feel like in case of an ever more probable national emergency. Many people around SW FL are still in various stages of this emergency and may be for some time. . . if they still have a residence.
Hurricane Ian was every bit the horror show that was reported on around the world. Just about every possible story of desperation could be duplicated maybe a hundred thousand times (Lee County accounted, before the storm, for about 400,000 residents. ) From drowning in one’s own home to coming back from evacuation to complete desolation and every possible story in between.
There are over fifty dead in hardest hit Lee County alone. There are rumors that many more bodies will be found in the near future. So far, about half a dozen died on Pine Island. A few more on the outer islands of Sanibel, Captiva and Cabbage Key. The predicament of one of our friends, Jeff, in Bokeelia came to the attention of Sarah Palin who very kindly gave words of encouragement.
We, by necessity, will concentrate on Pine Island stories mostly and try to mention other areas for comparison purposes. Being located on Pine Island for the last 60 years, we have a rare perspective on the recent disaster that was hurricane Ian.
Let’s lay to rest the penultimate stupidity that “climate change” had anything, e.g., absolutely nothing to do with this storm. The mean sea level in Pineland has NOT gone up one inch in 60 years. There have been stronger storms. There have been 
larger storms. There have been more storms in any given year and there have been fewer storms. There have been faster moving storms. There have been slower moving storms and every combination thereof.
If nobody bothered to live in SW Florida, there would be no dead count, there would be no monetary value to the destruction (in inflated dollars.) In other words, contrary to popular opinion, storms don’t give a damn. Furthermore, if nobody lived here, there would be no story.
However, Thomas Edison predicted that a million people would discover Ft. Myers. Many very old buildings survived because the builders of the day were familiar with the vagaries of tropical storms. Most building’s of the last 15 to 20 years survived with minimal damage. Those in-between and most mobile homes suffered the most.
We here at PIN had little damage. The reason was that we were destroyed as a result of hurricane Charlie's fast moving 175mph winds in 2004. (Ian was 150mph but sat over SW FL for about 18 hours.) It took 4 years to rebuild and we rebuilt to withstand 200 mph winds which we hope never to test.
Next day after the storm, some news outlets reported that some government official(s) gave an order to force an evacuation of all the islands since access to the islands was cut off because roads to the bridges had been washed out.
The theory was that it would take months or even years to obtain all of the various engineering and permits required to rebuild this access to the bridges to the islands. The bridges themselves were not seriously damaged, just the immediate roads getting to the bridges, on both sides of the bridges had been washed out.
It turns out that thousands of people remained on the islands, many of whom had not sustained much damage and who had no desire to go anywhere else. They just needed to be resupplied with water food and gasoline for the generators.
Next day after the storm, some news outlets reported that some government official(s) gave an order to force an evacuation of all the islands since access to the islands was cut off because roads to the bridges had been washed out.
The theory was that it would take months or even years to obtain all of the various engineering and permits required to rebuild this access to the bridges to the islands. The bridges themselves were not seriously damaged, just the immediate roads getting to the bridges, on both sides of the bridges had been washed out.This was the case for the three bridges in Matlacha and the Sanibel causeway.
It turns out that thousands of people remained on the islands, many of whom had not sustained much damage and had no desire to go anywhere else. They just needed to be resupplied with water food and gasoline for the generators. This wouldn’t have been any different than the Pine Island old timers were used to.
In the days after, people asked the rhetorical question, “Is it “ their plan” to let everyone on the barrier islands starve?”
There were a number of family construction companies that began on Pine Island about fifty years ago and have since become major companies in south Florida. Williamson and Sons and Honc Construction, two of the largest. Both very active in the community.
Williamsons Construction quickly began to barge needed supplies to Pine Island on a regular basis as did other smaller operations including non-business people with smaller boats.
Honc Construction contacted the Governor’s office and suggested that it could have the access open to Pine Island in under three days if DeSantis gave the go-ahead. Of course, the implication was that government engineering, feasibility studies, permits, union requirements, etc., would require months, even years and waste millions of dollars and provide nothing to show for it except potentially half-dead islanders. So far no politician has admitted to this “never let a disaster go to waste” rumor.
The response from DeSantis was “start now.” Up to this point almost a week had already elapsed at which time Honc began moving the large equipment into place and began repairing bridge access. This scenario was referred to by some of the national and international media as what was possible with smart leadership. Access to Pine Island began three days later.
More to come.
