Fort Myers Beach couple ripped apart during Ian

Pictures are what Jo Ann Knobloch clings to when she thinks of her husband.

Because too often, all she remembers are dark, haunting flashbacks of his sudden death during Hurricane Ian.

Karl Knobloch, 80, was one of 61 victims in Lee County whose life was cut short by the category 4 storm.

“Every night, I kind of replay all,” Knobloch said.

The couple lived on Estero Boulevard in Fort Myers Beach for 15 years.

They decided not to evacuate. It’s a decision Knobloch deeply regrets.

Knobloch saw the waves coming from across the street.

“I said to my husband, I was at the front door and I said, oh my gosh, look, I said, there’s water coming across the street and it’s coming fast,” she said.

The garage doors couldn’t hold back the 15 feet of storm surge.

“Kept hearing these tremendous bangs like a cannon going off. And I said to my husband, what is that horrible banging, and I didn’t realize it was the waves hitting the garage doors,” she said.

The white caps of waves filled their home, the water rising rapidly.

When things began to calm down, Knobloch said her husband walked down to the garage and that’s when a gust of wind picked up a piece of the garage door.

“And he was standing there very close to the opening and it hit him in the front of his head,” she said. “But he had looked over at me and there was no blood or anything but it might have dazed him.”

Dazed, he fell into the surging Gulf water.

“I’m like what is he doing that for? And you know, I said get over here to the stairs. And he didn’t do that he just laid down in the water, of course, that put him in the floating position and out he went,” Knobloch said.

Knobloch was left helpless, unable to save his life.

Four days later, Karl’s body was found in a canal, half a mile away.

“I just was just doing what I could do, I really wasn’t thinking about danger. Now I do, because I relive it every night,” she said.

She continues to fight the dark memories that cloud her mind but feels lucky to be alive.

Her husband loved to read, completing 12 to 15 books a week.

She said she plans to set up a memorial at the library her husband visited regularly.

“I would never want to ever go through this again, or see anyone go through it again,” Knobloch said. “It’s devastating.”