Governments and insurance companies were bracing for billions in damage — and years of rebuilding. The death toll was least 12, according to police departments, but was expected to rise.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — On the vacation island resorts of Sanibel and Captiva, rescuers flew in on helicopters because the roads from the mainland of Southwest Florida had collapsed into San Carlos Bay. To the south, Fort Myers Beach, once a lively town center of fish restaurants and bars, was reduced to a debris field of concrete blocks, shredded wood and broken tiles, its pier stripped down to a skeleton of pilings.
And as families took to social media and called police for help finding their loved ones, rescuers searched for the missing. Early Thursday morning, once the winds subsided, search-and-rescue teams, firefighters, police officers and public-works crews fanned out into Southwest Florida. Air crews from U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard helicopters scoured neighborhoods, in particular on the cut-off barrier islands, looking for trapped survivors and making “dozens of rescues” before the sun rose on Thursday, according to the governor’s office.
Power crews from the Florida Department of Power & Light, and other utility companies, were also streaming into Southwest Florida. In some cases, they’ll be repairing damage. In the hardest-hit counties, the whole grid will have to be rebuilt. Some 100 engineers were also deployed to inspect bridges, like the causeway connecting the mainland to Sanibel Island, which collapsed at five sections, making passage possible only by boat. Exactly how many people remained stranded on the barrier islands was unclear. The mainland road leading to the causeway was folded up like an accordion and covered by debris, including a stray spiral staircase deposited by the winds into the brush next to a pickup truck.
In downtown Fort Myers on the mainland, boats that had been docked in the river sat in a jumble in the parking lot of Joe’s Crab Shack. Their turbulent journey ripped open hulls, snapped masts, severed engines. Scattered on the ground or hung up in the branches of fallen trees were rudders, anchors, railings, sails and seat cushions.
Helen Louchart, a 75-year-old resident of the senior living community, had watched as winds lifted a Flagstaff Super Lite RV. “It didn’t roll over on the ground,” she said Thursday as she juggled a water bottle, hammer, wrench and a pill bottle in her arms. “The wind picked it up, turned it over and dropped it down,” she said.
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