Yahoo Finance Reporting on Hurricane Ian's Devastation from the Field, I Was Struck by Floridians' Will, Faith and Resolve
Courtesy Courtney Dakin/Dakin Dairy Farms Dakin Dairy Farms after Hurricane Ian
Dubbed a "500-year flood event" by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and, at the time of this writing, responsible for at least 108 confirmed deaths with thousands still unaccounted for, Hurricane Ian may yet prove one of the deadliest in U.S. history. It's already Florida's worst since the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which killed over 400 people.
So, when I set out from my relatively untouched Jacksonville neighborhood with an assignment to provide frontline coverage of Ian's aftermath in southwest Florida, I braced myself — or so I thought.
My first encounter happened when my Waze app rerouted me from an increasingly slow I-75, crowded with evacuees headed home on the Saturday following Ian's Wednesday landfall, uncertain of what awaited them. I met Pam Robinson and Darla Phillips walking along Border Road in rural Venice, Florida, where homes, farms and a wildlife reserve were flooded when the Myakka River crested. The two friends were walking their horses — Papa Diamond, a rust-colored Tennessee Walking Horse, and Freedom, a 15-month-old black Percheron.
"Our farm is 3 ft. under water and the barn is flooded," Robinson said. "We had to get the horses out of there, so we're going up to a friend's pasture on higher ground."
During the storm, their barn's roof blew off, and the horses were able to escape into the pasture. Though it may seem counterintuitive to those unfamiliar with keeping livestock, the wide-open space provides more protection for large animals. When the air pressure changes with an approaching storm, horses — wild and tame — will gather, head toward an area with tree coverage and stand together in a "butts-to-the-wind" huddle to stabilize themselves against storm gusts. The horses' instinctive move proved life-saving for Papa Diamond.
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"Sometime during the storm, a huge rod blew directly through his stable," Robinson said. "If he hadn't gotten out of the barn before then, he'd be dead."
Devan Stuart Lesley Pam Robinson with horse Papa Diamond
Unfortunately, that same instinct wasn't enough to dodge devastation at Dakin Dairy Farms' two locations in nearby Myakka City, where brothers Jerry and Cameron Dakin lost a combined 600 heifers.
"I've never lost more than 10 animals in a storm until now," said a shaken Jerry, a fifth-generation dairy farmer. "We pushed all the cattle out to pasture because it's just safer that way in case a building comes down. They were all gathered along the fence line laying down when I left at 7:30 the night of the storm. I came back at 3 in the morning and thought they were alright. But when I went back out at around 8, that's when I noticed something wrong. I said, 'Man, they're dead.' I've ever seen anything like it.
"None of the cattle drowned," he explained. "This is from the sheer stress of the wind. The best thing we've been able to do is give the cattle a multivitamin, multimineral and molasses. Molasses is like sugar, so it gave them energy. But they were out in the storm for so long that they just ran out of energy."
Courtesy Courtney Dakin/Dakin Dairy Farms Dakin Dairy Farms after Hurricane Ian
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The brothers and their staff already were busy setting up a hub to provide hay and supplies to fellow farmers, all the while wearied and worried about future implications far beyond their fences. Three years ago, there were upward of 350 dairies in Florida; today, that figure is down to 52, Jerry says. The Dakins, whose 1,200-acre operation is one of the nation's largest dairy farm and processing plants, own the only two left in Manatee County.
"If I and my brothers don't make it, Florida is going to be down to 48 dairies," he said.
Jerry says U.S. dairy regulations "are not helping the farmers to stay here, and the younger generations want a different lifestyle."
Devan Stuart Lesley Mary Jo Smith
"We're just hoping that there's some help there to keep us in business," he adds. "We can't survive this on our own. We're going to need help."
From my car window, the views of Fort Myers, Port Charlotte, North Port and the surrounding area were a mix of relatively unscathed neighborhoods, near-dystopian scenes and lots of in-between. Mary Jo Smith's home in the Sun-N-Fun Mobile Home Village & RV Park in Fort Myers is one of those in-between stories. Two sets of stairs leading into her front and back doors washed away and her flooring will likely need to be replaced.
Devan Stuart Lesley Mary Jo Smith
Fortunately, her home is still standing, but it will be up to the insurance adjusters to determine how much of the life savings she and her late husband, a pastor who died in 2017, invested can be recouped. It's a heavy waiting-game burden made all the more difficult considering much of what may be lost is sentimental and irreplaceable.
"His billfold, his watches, our [marriage and birth] certificates," Smith said of items she lost. She was tearful yet hopeful that these memory-laden pieces will ultimately dry out and be preserved. "He was a good man," she added.
On the other end of that spectrum is Dianna Walz, whose mobile home in a nearby neighborhood collapsed around her and two friends whose hopes for safe shelter were dramatically dashed.
"We were inside when the water got up high and then the trailer just tumbled over on to us. The walls came down and the water started coming in and I just held on," Walz said. She and her friends spent the next two hours balancing on a microwave oven that had landed atop the remains of the home, pelted by rain and wind. Having never learned to swim, she stayed put when her companions dove into the 5-foot-high waters and swam to the rooftop of another trailer.
Courtesy Devan Stuart Lesley The remnants of Dianna Walz's home after Hurricane Ian
"I just had to wait it out another few hours," she said. "The whole time, I wondered where my little kitty Stewie was. He was such a cute little guy. And then, there were the snakes — four of them. I don't know what kind they were, but one was long. I beat that one off with a wooden board. The rest were small so I just shooed them off. They were just trying to get to a dry spot too."
Finally, the rain stopped and the wind stilled. The friends had to wait together for hours longer until Lee County sheriff's officers could rescue them.
"We were tired. We were wet. We were miserable. But we made it," Walz said. "We haven't been able to find my friend's husband, though. We've called all the hospitals, but they all said they don't have him. I hope he's out there somewhere. All I can think even now is, 'Don't stop believing in God.'"
Lori and Mark Stewart of North Port in nearby Sarasota County had a similar experience on their 8-acre property.
"People are walking through the water trying to get to neighbors' houses to make sure they're okay," she recalled. "You've got water moccasins and rattlesnakes and alligators in the water with you and you're just wading through, not knowing what to expect, but you just keep going. We canoed out to the top of the Ponce de Leon bridge today to pick up supplies from friends, and I thought, 'I'm just seriously so blessed.' It's incredible the way we've seen the neighborhood come together. You would not believe the texts and the help."
Joe Raedle/Getty Hurricane Ian damage in Fort Myers Beach
The couple bolted out of their home to pull several chickens from a flooded coop into the garage.
"I thought two of them had died, but I wrapped them up in towels, prayed over them and two hours later, they opened their eyes. And we thought we lost some our cattle but, thank God, a neighbor called us today and said, 'Hey, I found your cows!' I just got done walking through my backyard, crying and thanking God for sparing my house. My yard that I poured my heart into and worked on for so many years is absolutely annihilated. But we're all alive, my animals are alive and it's just one amazing thing after another. I'm a ball of all kinds of stuff right now."
Meanwhile, the earliest signs of recovery began to emerge. I talked with representatives of organizations like Samaritan's Purse International Relief, which sets up operations to help clean muddied homes, chop downed trees, tarp torn roofs and clear debris, readying homes for damage assessment and repair while providing a bit of spiritual respite to victims. Volunteers expect to stay in the area until at least December.
"Long after the media coverage goes away, people are still left here with so many needs unmet and they feel forgotten," says program manager Chandler Saylors. "It takes effort and intentionality to continue to help and to show up. It's an important message to deliver."
Stan Hays, founder of Operation BBQ Relief, shares that sentiment. Launched in the wake of the Joplin tornado in 2011, the organization plans to remain in Southeast Florida for at least 30 days, cooking up and handing out some 60,000 meals a day.
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"If we can serve them some barbecue and help people forget about what's happened to them for just 10 or 15 minutes while they're eating that sandwich, we've done something," he said. "We call it the healing power of barbecue, because people can conceptually see themselves having that block party again, having that backyard barbecue with their family."
"It sucks that so many of us have lost so much," adds Josh Tino, who watched as Hurricane Ian's winds ripped the roof off his three-bedroom Bradenton duplex while he rushed to gather all he could of his family's belongings and their pet bearded dragon. "But at the end of the day, it's just stuff. It's plastics, metal, clothing, fabrics — it's just stuff. And we're safe, we're together and we're going to be okay. Yeah, getting there is going to be quite a ride. But we're going to be fine."
