Kind of mislead by forecasts and stayed for Ian here in Estero, just inland from Fort Myers Beach
by a mile or so. FMB is
still very dark at night. We're in a 19th floor hi-rise, we were able to watch the 12 foot of surge
roll in right across the 700
acres of wetlands to the west of our community, and up the Estero River. I would say the surge
took less than an hour.
The 2007 building we live in is extremely strong, with 150 mph windows. Visibility was actually
pretty good during the
whole storm. Probably saw 120 mph gusts. We watched our Lanai enclosure peel away. (I'll post
pictures) The parking
garage and storage units were flooded with 3 feet of water, one of our cars was just hauled away
yesterday, insurance
called it totaled. (Electrics fried, couldn't even open the doors. When it was towed yesterday it
was a giant mold factory.) I
have a Miata parked on an outdoor upper parking deck which escaped the surge, and we were
able to leave our
community the next afternoon, dodging fallen trees, etc. The street in front of our building was
covered in flopping fish
from the Gulf. We just got back late Monday, having stayed in a hotel in Homestead. Our power
came back on last week,
but hi-rise A/C cooling tower equipment as well as breakers controlling water pumps were
destroyed. it took days to
source a 3000 amp breaker system. A/C and water are back on, and they lifted the boil water
notice yesterday for our
part of Lee County. We were very lucky in the hi-rise, hundreds of homes in our community were
flooded with as much as
4 ft of water. Streets are now filled with water- logged furniture, cabinets, drywall, horticulture,
etc.