(WEHT) As for places where the hurricane already passed through, residents, including some with ties to the Tri-State, are assessing the damage.
Others from our area are on the way down to help them.
Former Eyewitness News Sports Anchor and Reporter Patrick Moore was in Fort Myers as the hurricane went through the city.
“I’m on the 4th floor of a very concrete, very solid condo complex. We didn’t do any swaying or anything, but a lot of the sliding doors and windows, they were moving, they were shaking,” said Moore.
He says the storm surge lead to widespread flooding, even at a TV station where his wife works, lead to widespread power outages, and devastated nearby coastal towns and islands.
“The Sanibel causeway is the way you get from the mainland to Sanibel Island, part of that collapsed last night I saw in a picture. I saw some of my favorite places I like to go to have fun on Fort Myers Beach are completely wiped out,” he said.
Fort Myers was one of several cities and towns in hurricane Ian’s path. More volunteers and utility crews from the Tri-State are standing by to help. The American Red Cross of western Kentucky says seven volunteers are deployed to Florida. Stan Scott is leaving Saturday for Orlando, to help others like the agency helped him more than two decades ago.
“In 2000, my house was hit by a tornado, and I remember the Red Cross coming through and giving us food and supplies,” Scott said. “I feel like I’m giving back from what I’ve already received.”
Eleven CenterPoint energy workers from Evansville are in Georgia now, preparing to go to Tampa and other nearby places to help restore power.
“It can be very challenging. When the main line that feeds a community or an area that’s taken down, that’s usually where you start, is to get the backbone of the system put back up,” said Paul Johnson, Electric Operations Manager for CenterPoint Energy, describing the challenges of power restoration after a hurricane.
“I want people to think of us here in southwest Florida, and as we rebuild and get this place to the beautiful paradise that it will be,” adds Moore.
(This story was originally published on September 29, 2022)
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