FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla — September 28, 2022 — the day Hurricane Ian made landfall and changed Fort Myers Beach forever.
ABC Action News reporter Heather Leigh and photojournalist Michael Brantley went back to the island six months after it was ravaged by Ian to look for hope and resiliency. They found was so much more.
It's a city that is strong and in the process of healing, no matter the timeline. Residents on the island still have no power and limited plumbing. But people there still find time to smile and laugh.
You can find peace in the crashing waves near where the Fort Myers Fishing pier used to be. But reminders of what happened are all around.
“When I went to bed, it was six feet… and then the next morning my wife said the house is gone. The house was on stilts, that’s all that was left when we got here," said Mike Chalfant, talking about his two-bedroom home along Estero Boulevard.
Fort Myers Beach and the people who call it home still struggle. While there has been much improvement, many of the streets, homes and businesses still look as they did directly following the storm.
“I sent somebody the picture, and she said 'Oh, somebody already took the sheetrock out,'" said Cheri Schlottman. "And, I said no, Mother Nature did it.”
The massive storm surge washed away memories and irreplaceable keepsakes.
It's very clear that Fort Myers Beach is doing everything it can to recover from Hurricane Ian. There are food trucks set up in what used to be Times Square, and there are tourists sitting on the beach trying to relax. But it's hard to do that when everywhere you look, there are gutted-out buildings and debris. A lot of folks are still trying to rebuild their lives.
Chalfant is just trying to keep busy — he shovels sand from his neighbor's empty driveway to help out. RV’s sit on the empty lots where homes used to be.
Chalfant and his wife were in Michigan when Ian made landfall. They came back in October to clear out their lot.
When asked what life has been like since the storm, Chalfant said, with a smile, "Oh, a lot different. I thought camping would be a lot more fun."
It bought him and his wife time to figure out what comes next.
Many neighbors describe how single-story homes lifted off their foundations at the height of the storm and washed down the street. That’s when they knew things were really bad. Even some of the two-story homes that are still standing, their pilings are still there even though they aren't very sturdy.
"We only found a deck on the other side of the neighbors. That’s all we found, and a chair back on the next street. I don’t know where anything else went," Chalfant said.
Right now, with no electricity, Chalfant's RV is running on a generator which is eating up gas and money. But he feels it’s better than the alternative.
“Well, when my wife said the house is gone, I thought, good. Cause I didn’t want to be doing what all these other people are doing, tearing things apart and redoing," he said.
Cheri Schlottman’s home is essentially gutted. She lives in Ft. Myers Beach part-time and wasn’t here when the storm made landfall.
“The back dismantled corner is the kitchen and then the utility room," Schlottman said as she pointed out the rooms in her home.
The hole she references was put there by another house that floated into theirs.
"But it also helped save our neighbor and his dog back there because they got out on our roof and stayed about four to five hours on my carport roof," she said.
When the water began to recede, a neighbor took them in for the night.
“The next day, he walked off with his dog," said Schlottman.
The stories of survival are no doubt amazing, but now, into the new year, trying to get life back on track is not easy.
“We knew it was going to be difficult but it’s nothing like you’ve imagined," she said.
Still, it’s happening. Slow and steady.
Chalfant doesn’t want to leave either.
“It’s really nice," he said. "Nice people here. Nice beach. I’m sure it’ll be back to normal, not normal but better.”
And stronger, no matter how long it takes.