Tornado-Producing Storm Rips Roof Off Of Fort Pierce Barn 

A powerful storm ripped through Fort Pierce a week or so ago, causing a destructive tornado to drop in its path and from its side effects causing horrendous property damage. The storm caused fallen trees and power lines, flooded roads and in at least in one case it ripped a barn roof right off. That happened at a home on West Angle Road.The homeowner, Stephanie Goings Trenary, said her husband had stepped outside to check on steaks he was grilling when suddenly, the sky went completely black.High winds and heavy rains quickly followed as Goings Trenary’s husband couldn’t get back in.“He was stuck on the back porch,” Goings Trenary said. “It created some sort of a suction where he couldn’t pull the door. I couldn’t push the door. And he couldn’t get in the house,” she said. “It was extremely scary. I’ve never been through anything like it before. We’ve only been married a couple of years. The thought that I could possibly lose my husband from a storm like, it was scary.”

The Tale Of Two Mobile Parks 

In Fort Myers Florida there were two mobile parks across the street from each other, just 200 yards away. When Hurricane Ian made landfall it spared Lazy J Mobile Home & RV Park with just minor flooding and damages but on the other side of Ortiz Avenue where Poinsettia Mobile Home Park was located, the damages told an entirely different story.Residents were trying to salvage what they could from the wreckage left by a monstrous-but-fickle storm that rampaged through Fort Myers. Many of them were retirees like 74-year-old Ken Williams, who moved from Wisconsin to spend his golden years soaking up the Florida sunshine in this park, which has more than 300 homes. The trailer that Williams had moved into last year looked like it had been pried open with a can opener. The roof was completely torn off and he'd been without electricity for two days, like the more than 1.8 million other Floridians as of Friday, according to PowerOutage.us.His insurance company has been completely unreachable, Williams said.“This is devastating,” Williams said.Other trailers were bent so severely by the fury of the storm that he could no longer get the front door and the main window open. The front porch was gone. So was the outdoor furniture. And so was the roof.

Damages From Hurricane Ian Cuts Sanibel Island Off From Florida Mainland

Hurricane Ian destroyed several portions of the Sanibel Causeway, this bridge that connects mainland Florida to Sanibel Islands, which is home to 6,500 people and located just south of where the storm made landfall. It has been reported that officials have characterized the extent of the damage as beyond simple repairs. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed at a Thursday morning briefing that the Sanibel Causeway is one of at least two bridges (along with the bridge that connects to Pine Island) that are "impassable" and will "require structural rebuilds.”It has been found that the bridge has multiple breaks along the bridge. Lee County had ordered people on the island to evacuate before the storm hit, though not everyone did. Sanibel Mayor Holly Smith said Thursday that the occupants of about 200 homes had stayed behind and that authorities had already confirmed two injuries and 12 deaths on Sanibel.It appears that other residents are effectively stranded on the island, either because they declined evacuation offers by rescue crews or because they are unaccounted for.At least three sections of the causeway were washed away by the storm surge, cutting the Sanibel and Captiva islands off from the rest of the state.

Flooding Far From The Coast 

In Orlando Florida, an emergency call was made from a nursing home shortly after 5 a.m. Water was seeping into the facility called Avante and the flood was threatening its 106 residents, some too frail to walk.By daybreak, dozens of rescue workers had arrived at Avante. The water in the building was about a foot deep, but it was perhaps as high as three feet in the parking lot outside. Many of the patients, in their 80s or 90s, were wheeled out on cots, their white sheets billowing in the whipping winds trailing Hurricane Ian, their faces filled with fear and confusion.They were then transported to nearby shelters and hospitals. 

Massive Property Damage In Fort Myers 

In Fort Myers, there are destroyed homes and buildings after the impact of Hurricane Ian. Cars were seen floating outside their homes paired with piles of debris. Many people of Fort Myers don't have a home to come back to and if they do it looks almost unrecognizable. The city of Fort Myers issued an emergency citywide 48-hour curfew for residents, visitors and first responders after the storm. Hurricane Ian made landfall as a powerful Category 4 storm in Cayo Costa on Wednesday afternoon. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.As long as many restaurants and establishments are completely destroyed from the catastrophe of the storm. "It's all gone. We lost everything: the restaurants, our house, our cars. I’m not, I don't know what, what do we even do?” a restaurateur said. “But we’re alive. ... We’ll be OK.”Entire neighborhoods have been swept away; iconic landmarks and legendary restaurants, lost; crucial bridges, collapsed. And the death toll continues to rise.

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