Map shows the deadliest points of Ian in Lee County

 

Lee County saw 61 people die because of Hurricane Ian’s wrath in September.

Southwest Florida’s community is working hard to pick itself up, but the lives lost will never be forgotten.

Many of the individuals who died were concentrated in an area of Fort Myers Beach.

On foot, you can walk to each destination. People who live there have to live with the reminder of the death and destruction around them.

For Steven, of Fort Myers Beach, each point hits a little close to home. One of them represents the life of a veteran in his 80’s who lived across the street.

“It’s difficult to take. So, I don’t know, it’s a tough place to stay at,” Steven said.

The veteran was found on Anchorage Street under debris or a collapsed structure.

“He was a Navy vet,” said Chance Butner, who lived on the floor below the man. “He just, kind of, wanted to stay with his house. That’s how he went.”

Butner said the veteran was his landlord and was at peace with death.

He even signed a will and left it on the kitchen counter before the storm hit.

“He did a lot in his lifetime,” Butner said. “He was in the military. He wrote a book. He was a professor for a college. He was a great guy. So once you get to know him, and you gotta cross on his barriers, he was a really great guy. So he loved everybody that was around.”

The stories change as you head north or south on Fort Myers Beach.

On Hercules Drive, there is Martha Campbell.

“I was in a tree and I watched her house gradually fall to the ground under the water and knew she was in there. But there was nothing, of course, we could do at the time,” her brother Bob Campbell said.

Another victim, Nichell Harris, drowned. She was staying with friends at a motel on Seminole Way for her birthday when the storm hit.

Then there is Karl Knobloch, who drifted away in the surge after being hit with debris.

He was found in a canal four days later.

“There just wasn’t time to really, you know, to really prepare for this,” his wife Jo Ann Knobloch said.

As you move in land, on the map, the reason for the deaths start to change, many of them for medical reasons, meaning first responders couldn’t get to those in need on time.