Originally from the icy plains of Michigan, Keith and his wife Tinka Bucholtz came to spend every winter in Florida and settled there permanently four years ago, in Fort Myers, on the east coast of the peninsula. When Hurricane Ian hit, the two retirees did not evacuate. They went to take refuge with their daughter. A house by the lagoon, but concrete, insulated with hurricane windows and raised. No danger, they thought, as the eye of the storm made landfall. “We couldn’t even hear the wind inside”explains Keith Wucholtz, sitting on his porch, by 24 degrees and an autumnal sun that has become radiant again.
The house did not move, but that was counting without the rising waters, on this disastrous Wednesday, September 28. The water rises, almost two meters, until it touches the first floor. Tinka Buchholtz does not know if the waters will continue to rise. “Of course I thought I was going to die. We have time to gamble in these moments. This hurricane made me take ten years. I will never come back to live in Florida again,” assures the septuagenarian. The couple’s house, unlike that of their daughter, is destroyed. It’s decided, they will return to settle in their native Michigan, north of Grand Rapids.
In this hurricane, it was not the wind that surprised. It sowed desolation in its path, but in an expected way: by dint of reinforcing its anti-hurricane standards, the strictest in the country, Florida has built structures that resist better and better. Certainly, the bridges that lead to the neighboring islands of Sanibel and Pine Island have been washed away. But homes built to Florida standards have held on, while shabby wooden shacks and RVs have flew away, coconut palms have been uprooted and trees uprooted.
The street invaded by the sea
No, the unexpected phenomenon relates to the rising waters, created by the cyclonic depression, amplified by a high tide, the winds and the shallow depth of the bay. Thus, Keith Cunnigham, 74, retired entrepreneur from Delaware, did not really fear for his life: his solid house has two floors, and he also stayed there during the storm. Suddenly, while the hurricane is reaching its peak, he receives a phone call from his neighbours, a couple in their seventies: they only have one floor and ask to take refuge at his place. He sees them, crossing the street invaded by the sea, battered by winds above 100 km/h, from the water to above the belt. “I thought they wouldn’t make it,” he says in his garage, cap defending the right to carry weapons on the head.
You have 76.05% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.