Thursday 29 September 2022 08:32 PM Fort Myers residents return to their homes under water by Hurricane Ian trends now
Survivors of Hurricane Ian tell how they clung to roofs and walls and prayed for salvation as the Sunshine State awoke to heartbreaking scenes of devastation.
The category four storm pulverized southwestern coastal cities with 155mph winds and swept an 18ft 'tsunami' ashore, engulfing homes, businesses and transforming whole neighborhoods into hazardous swamps.
DailyMail.com arrived in Fort Myers Thursday morning to find desperate locals begging for help as they returned home to begin the grim job of salvaging possessions and securing their water-ravaged properties.
'I've lost every damn thing I own,' said 93-year-old retiree Tom Hinkle, as he stared out at the murky-broken floodwater making it impossible to reach his two-bed retirement home a thousand yards or so from the Gulf of Mexico.
'I've lived in my home for 22 years and it's gone. My car is even under water,' he added, with tears in his eyes.
Hinkle made it out alive thanks to Good Samaritan Ray Remillard, 62, who gathered four elderly neighbors from the Sunshine Mobile Village, several miles from Fort Myers Beach, and took them to his company's apartment further inland.
They returned Thursday to find the majority of the 180 mobile homes completely beyond salvage.
Worse still, several residents, including a pregnant woman, are unaccounted for, according to locals.
Residents of Sunshine Mobile Village returned to find the majority of the 180 mobile homes destroyed
'I've lost every damn thing I own,' said 93-year-old retiree Tom Hinkle, as he stared out at the murky-broken floodwater making it impossible to reach his two-bed retirement home a thousand yards or so from the Gulf of Mexico
Badly shaken and caked in mud, a woman in her 90s looked in disbelief at the floodwater as she was carried out and placed in an ambulance
DailyMail.com arrived in Fort Myers Thursday morning to find desperate locals begging for help
'Everyone is distraught. They just want to get back to their homes but there are no homes to get back to,' one resident explained
Some residents heeded warnings to flee their homes while their neighbors chose to stay behind
President Biden has declared the event a 'major disaster' in Florida which makes federal funding available
Search and rescue teams from the McGregor Fire Department took to the water in dinghies
A woman in her 90s was ferried to safety Thursday morning as search and rescue teams from the McGregor Fire Department took to the water in dinghies.
Badly shaken and caked in mud, she looked in disbelief at the floodwater as she was carried out and placed in an ambulance.
'Everyone is distraught. They just want to get back to their homes but there are no homes to get back to,' Remillard explained.
'When the winds came there wasn't much protection. There are homes that just floated away. The car ports are gone, the roofs peeled off.
'We have
