Nelle Jurgeleit-Green’s debris pile next to her trailer.
Residents with connections to Florida barrier islands hit hardest by Hurricane Ian say water damage will be compounded by mildew and mold that is likely to ruin much of what wasn’t swept away by the storm.
Norman Hughes spends some of his winters at a friend’s family cottage on North Captiva Island, about 20 miles west of Fort Meyers, one of the first places hit by the storm. The tiny island – four miles long and a half-mile wide – was submerged under at least five feet of water when Ian smacked it Sept. 28 with a tidal surge and winds up to 150 mph.
Most of the 300 small homes on the island are built on pilings and nearly all residents had evacuated. The cottage’s windows and doors survived and its interior escaped flooding, but wind-driven water came in through the building’s roof vents and now black mold is spreading on its walls and furniture.
“It’s amazing the force of wind blowing water into those buildings. You always leave the air conditioner on there as a dehumidifier, but the electric’s out and without that, the black mold just gets going,” Hughes said.
There are no cars on North Captiva and access is limited to private barge and ferry service, so Hughes expects restoration of electric service will take more than a month, and finding a contractor will take even longer.
“There are five-hundred thousand homes in that area needing work. For some little cottage on an island, you won’t find a contractor… There’s a big, blue tarp on the roof now, but if we went there, we’d be camping,” Hughes said.
He estimated the cost of repairs at $200,000 or more. “It’s not totaled, but where do you stop? Everything’s up in the air right now, but you can’t live with black mold.”
The area has been hit by at least five severe hurricanes in the past century, Hughes said, and residents there understand the risk. “It’s kind of like buying a fishing boat. If you’ve got enough money to lose, you might as well do it.”
Nelle Jurgeleit-Greene, who grew up in nearby Sarasota, recently bought a one-bedroom mobile home at Shangri-La trailer park on Pine Island, just east of North Captiva. The trailer sits on cinder blocks about three feet off the ground and the tidal surge reached to her kitchen countertops. A screened-in porch she built beside the trailer washed away.
“(The trailer) is an aquarium now. Unless something was hung up or put on a shelf, it got covered underwater,” she said. A photo she saw showed her new refrigerator turned over after apparently floating around in her kitchen. Another photo shows an old refrigerator, lawn furniture and camping gear poking out of debris piled three feet deep next to her place, her kayak at the bottom of it. Mold and mildew will claim more, she said.
Despite the losses, Jurgeleit-Greene said she feels fortunate. The trailer wasn’t expensive and isn’t her primary residence. “It’s just stuff. There were maybe a few sentimental things I lost but other people lost everything. I’m grateful I have what I have.”
Jurgeleit-Greene hopes to visit Pine Island in a few weeks to see what, if anything, she can salvage. Electric service hasn’t been restored and plumbing works only three hours per day. Security checkpoints, road damage and rescue vehicles mean a 25-minute drive to the mainland is now taking about three hours.
“I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get there. There were rumors of looters showing up on boats,” she said. “Everything is going to be expensive. Even sheetrock. And will it even be available at this point?”
Jurgeleit-Greene said she had been looking for a more permanent spot in the Lower 48 but is growing cautious of waterfront areas, as flood insurance has become prohibitively expensive.
Norman Hughes said Haines residents like him are beginning to be able to relate to other folks suffering catastrophic weather. “You watch this stuff on TV and you don’t think it affects you, but we had our (fatal) slide two years ago.”