It is the nice and cozy waters of the Gulf of Mexico that carry folks to Fort Myers Beach – however on Wednesday afternoon, they unleashed the fury of Hurricane Ian.
A tsunami-like storm surge, 3m (10ft) excessive in locations, washed away houses and companies.
The seafront has been levelled – now affected by the remnants of the outlets and eating places that made it a bustling vacationer resort.
Early studies of ‘substantial lack of life’ – Hurricane Ian updates
T-shirts and baseball caps from a memento retailer, pots and pans from a seafood cafe and glasses from a bar are partly obscured by brown sludge, a reminder of what as soon as was.
Somewhat additional down the highway, a staircase is all that continues to be of the orange home on the beachfront.
The story of its occupants is advised by their neighbour, Ron Shepherd, who watched as the home was lifted from its foundations by a torrent of water.
“I was on the balcony and could see it floating by,” he says. “There were three people and a dog inside and we were shouting to them to get out and grab hold of another house that they were passing that was unoccupied. They got out but they were washed away. One guy held onto a palm tree for two minutes but then he was gone, the water was moving so fast.”
Nobody who remained in Fort Myers Beach as Hurricane Ian made landfall anticipated it to be so vicious or to do such intensive harm.
Wyatt and Brooke Jordan stayed in a constructing simply again from the seafront with their 4 youngsters.
“The water came up pretty fast,” Wyatt stated. “I’ve lived in Florida my whole life and I’ve never seen anything like this. We went to bed on Tuesday night and thought it was heading for Tampa and then we woke up and it was coming for us.”
Read extra from Sky News:
Dramatic earlier than and after photos present scale of destruction
Residents describe escaping the attention of the storm
So many individuals appear to have been stunned by the trail this storm took – but additionally the huge space it coated and the way slowly it moved.
It is that this that may consequence within the highest price for Florida, each in lives misplaced and the restoration.
Source: information.sky.com”