‘There’s nothing I can do’: Students watch Hurricane Ian destroy homes

About a year ago, Paris Thompson’s family purchased a 100ft houseboat. The boat, which they rented as an Airbnb in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, was found a mile and a half inland atop other homes after Hurricane Ian last week.

“It was completely destroyed,” said Thompson, a Fort Myers sophomore on the women’s volleyball team.

Nine days after the hurricane hit Florida, the death toll rose to 101, according to the Associated press. The Category 4 storm is the second deadliest hurricane to hit the continental United States this century.

As the storm headed toward the United States, Notre Dame students in southwest Florida were forced to watch their families prepare to take shelter.

“I just felt a little helpless. My whole family is back home, I can’t do anything and I felt a little guilty for being away, but I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Ethan Gable from Napoli.

Thompson said she was unable to contact her family for days after the hurricane made landfall.

“I’ve called my parents 100 times since the day it happened like Saturday and I couldn’t reach them. So I was seeing on the news outlets [that] are found and I’m freaking out because I’m like, ‘I couldn’t talk to my family,'” she said.

All of Thompson’s family members remained safe during the storm, and her mother’s and father’s homes avoided serious damage. Her mother’s house had about eight feet of standing water in the garage, but avoided major flooding inside the rest of the house, she said. Her parents parked their cars near the highway further inland to avoid the brunt of the storm surge.

Alexandra Chlumsky, a senior pole vaulter with the Fort Myers track team, said she didn’t expect the storm to be so devastating. Growing up in Florida with the constant threat of hurricanes, Chlumsky thought her family was prepared. However, as Ian approached last Wednesday, the magnitude of the storm quickly began to set in. She said she left her class when her mother informed her of the expected storm surge – before they lost cellphone service.

“It was emotional for me because it was way worse than expected,” Chlumsky said. “In the moments leading up to it, my dad told me it was as scared as he probably had ever been in his life.”

A submerged car in the Alexandra Chlumsky neighborhood of Fort Myers, Florida. (Courtesy of Alexandra Chlumsky)

The Chlumskys fared better than most houses in their neighborhood. The main part of their house was not seriously flooded, but the garage was flooded, rendering the family’s cars unusable. They also owned a condo on Fort Myers Beach that was completely destroyed.

“I don’t even think it exists anymore,” she said.

Chlumsky said the hurricane devastated his friends’ homes on Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach.

“Their homes are completely destroyed,” she said.

The causeway connecting the island to the mainland collapsed as a result of the storm.

Gable’s family was staying in a rental house across the street because their main house is being renovated. The hurricane destroyed the rental home, leaving about five feet of standing water inside, he said. The storm left a few inches of standing water in her main residence, but destroyed the floors that were under renovation. As a result, her family expects to stay in a condo for about the next nine months, Gable said.

Even with her mother from Louisiana and her father from Naples, Gable said her family had never experienced such a devastating storm.

“They have weathered many storms. They have lived [in Naples] for like 20 years. They said it was the worst they had seen,” he said.

Amid the tragedy left behind in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Thompson said the devastation has driven unity and empathy at home and on campus.

“My teachers reached out to me, my old dorm rectors reached out to me, so I think that feeling of a family away from family was huge for me there,” she said. “Who can I turn to when I can’t reach the person I need the most? And so I think that was huge for me.

Although her parents’ homes were not rendered uninhabitable by the storm, many in their neighborhoods were, Thompson said. Now her family is focused on trying to help those who have lost everything.

“The most important thing we said as a family was how lucky we were to get out alive and with very little damage compared to a lot of people,” he said. she declared.

Thompson worked with the University to organize a fundraising campaign for schools and families in Southwest Florida. The reader would send in items ranging from lightly used sports equipment to clothing and non-perishable food.

The storm surge nearly covered an entire building in Fort Myers. (Courtesy of Paris Thompson)

As Southwest Florida begins its recovery effort, Chlumsky said the national attention on her hometown hits her every day.

“Fort Myers is so crowded, it’s a big city. The entire Fort Myers-Naples area encompasses nearly one million people,” she said. “But when you start seeing your city all over the national news, and you see these TikToks going viral, like that makes it so much more real, in a way.”

Contact Ryan at [email protected]




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