Fort Myers Beach Resident Surveys 'Devastation' to Boat Docks Following Hurricane Ian
A resident of Fort Myers Beach surveyed the damage done to his neighborhood after Hurricane Ian tore through Florida as a Category 4.
Stephen Clark said he captured this footage in a borrowed boat on September 29. The video shows destroyed docks, boats, and buildings, and debris floating in the water.
Clark said, “The devastation was mind-numbing.”
Clark shared another video from his neighborhood on Facebook, saying, “The two-story houses did as they were designed and the water blew out through the bottom. And the one-story houses just filled up with water and that was pretty much it.” Credit: Stephen Clark via Storyful
Video transcript
STEPHEN CLARK: Now, a lot of these hard tops did, actually, fine. I have one of the hard tops, and so I hope that it held on. Although my boat-- my boat was kind of like that boat. It was tied up very high and latched onto the lift. So my fear is the boat was going to get lifted higher and crush the top.
I thought that looked like your boat for a second, but it isn't. Straight ahead.
- I'm going over a tree. I just wanted to--
STEPHEN CLARK: Yeah, this tree right here. Just make sure we swing way left. I'll watch this side here.
See, everything looks like it's kind of swung down here, to this end of the canal, piled up right here. I think it's low enough. This thing doesn't draft very much. There's a little gas can.
What in the world is that, right there? Is that the top of somebody's-- see that big white thing there? What is that? Whole dock flipped over on it?
- Yeah. It looks like the underside.
STEPHEN CLARK: Ah, man. Wouldn't you know it, this boat right here hasn't run for years. Looks like it's fine.
- Yeah, Michael's boat.
STEPHEN CLARK: As we're coming in here, clearly some of our neighbors stayed or managed to get in because they're--
- Now, this is Michael and [INAUDIBLE].
STEPHEN CLARK: They are running generators and--
- That's who's been giving us some information.
STEPHEN CLARK: Oh, is that where you're getting some information?
- That's what he just talked about.
STEPHEN CLARK: Oh, OK. Good. Good.
- That wasn't their house. Wow. These people are the ones that I bought my boat from.
STEPHEN CLARK: Oh, that's right.
- They just put that hoist in. And their boat wasn't ready. They thought they were going to take delivery. It's a quarter of a million dollar boat, and they just didn't take delivery yet.
STEPHEN CLARK: Oh, they're probably lucky on that one. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out what we're looking at here. It's the side of a building or something. It's a big, big, big piece of lumber right there. I still can't quite identify what this is.
- It looks like an upside-down dock.
STEPHEN CLARK: Yeah, maybe just a whole dock that came. Yeah, the boat came up. And obviously, my fear is mine will smash into my ceiling. Well, good news. My boat is in the hoist. As I expected, my neighbor's cut loose. Where his ended up, I've got to find out. Somebody's car came into the canal right here.
My boat looks like it's sitting a little crooked up there, but it is-- it is high and dry. This house right here, look it. The whole back of this house is gone. These one-story Florida houses just didn't fare well.
Now, we're coming up into Jim's canal over here. If you want to tie up on my dock, it's pretty clear.
- Oh, my god. Well, my Sea-Doo's fine.
STEPHEN CLARK: Hey, it looks like your Sea-Doo's good up there. Who's car is that?
- There's a car in there.
STEPHEN CLARK: Somebody's car is right there. There's a line coming across here of some sort. I don't know where it goes. See that?
- Yeah.
STEPHEN CLARK: We can just steer that left of that a little.
- Oh, there's something else here. What's that?
STEPHEN CLARK: Was there a house here?
- I think there's a cable we're going over.
STEPHEN CLARK: Yeah. Want to shut your motor off for a second, or just throttle it down?
- I'm trying to raise it.
STEPHEN CLARK: Keep going. Keep doing it, if you can. We're caught on it, right now. So if you turn it off-- go ahead and turn it off.
