LEE COUNTY, Fla — A few hours before sunset, we caught a ride out of the Burnt Store Boat Ramp with Steve Powers, a Matlacha resident who lost everything but keeps giving back.
To ride on a boat with Powers is like hanging out with the mayor of a small town. He seems to know everyone, everywhere.
Powers has called Matlacha his home for decades. However, after Hurricane Ian, his mobile home on the island is a total loss; his shrimp boat hasn't been seen since Hurricane Ian barreled through, and another boat is leaning on its side against the seawall.
"What is the reality of what you see on the ground and on Pine Island with what you're dealing with?" ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska asked.
"Not what I would expect to happen, you know, there's still no ice out there, you think that the government would be dropping off all this ice and fuel or something, you know, there's no fuel," Powers said.
"That just seems odd that, you know, there's been really, no nothing. You know, you would think, first thing in our emergency would be to, you know, get people ice, so the food that they had stocked up doesn't go bad. Because now you're three or four days in, and all your (expletive) is thawing out."
"What more would you like to see them do?" Paluska asked.
"You think they would have the massive drop off of ice right off the rip, you know, a day later, there should be pods of ice sitting all over," Powers responded.
Since Hurricane Ian hit our area, Powers said the supply runs haven't stopped. They've been hauling essential items to tired, hungry, and shell-shocked souls.
"The one trip I took out, you know, 20 some migrants on this boat," Powers said.
Pine Island is mainly an agricultural community with a lot of migrant workers. Many evacuated and returned to their homes to assess the damage.
Powers said the speed at which they've started rebuilding the road washed out to the Matlacha Pass Bridge has been breakneck and credits that to Gov. Ron DeSantis' efforts to fix the road and get more aid to the hard-hit islands.
"So in my mind, Ron, you know is the man it is what it is, you ask people to do more, and you get more done," Powers said. "My girlfriend works at LCEC, and she is on seven days 14-hour shifts until every single person in the county is restored. So I'm hoping Ron has cracked the whip making these people work harder. So my girlfriend comes home quicker."
After picking up supplies from two different boat ramps, Powers took us to Pine Island. As low tide hit, with a full boat, he maneuvered around storm debris, sand banks, and strong currents, pointing out locations where homes were destroyed and lives lost.
"It took four hours to dig them out," Powers said, pointing to a destroyed home where two bodies were found.
Powers also said crews recovered a body underneath his boat leaning against the seawall outside his mobile home.
Powers still doesn't know who was pulled out from under his boat.
The death toll is now rising to more than 100 and is expected to increase. Half recovered in Lee County.
Four bodies were pulled out of an area near where the road washed away before the Matlacha Pass bridge.
As recovery efforts continue, people living on the cut-off barrier islands need supplies.
Civilians like Powers carry the weight on their shoulders to get supplies by boat.
While we were with him, he took a group of firefighters from the Panhandle back to the mainland.
The men were tired and grateful for the ride out. Lieutenant Scott Kasper with Pace Fire and Rescue was holding all of his bunker gear.
We stood together in the back of the boat as we pulled away from the island. He told me they drove engine trucks down but couldn't get them on the island until the bridges were repaired.
Lieutenant Kasper said they wanted to be ready and in position as more people came back to the island and started to run generators increasing the risk of fire.
Fort Walton Beach Fire and Okaloosa Islands Fire Rescue also hitched a ride.
Powers is glad to help. His selflessness in taking care of his community is on full display.
There was no request for help he turned down, and no task too difficult.
Before heading out of the disaster zone to our homes for a hot meal and warm shower, he offered us dinner at his uncle's house on Matlacha.
Cruising us back to our car at the boat dock, he stopped to help someone else in need. He gave a boater a breaker fuse, and in doing so, he lost his running lights on the boat. He told the boater he would buy more fuses and get them out to him the next day.
A symbol of hope in such a devastated area.
"Is this community going to make it as a Florida treasure?" Paluska asked.
"You couldn't beat the people out of it now; how you gonna beat them out of it later, you know?" said Powers.
