Residents rescued by boat in Englewood community

The Point of Pines community in Englewood is submerged in feet of water, with emergency services using rescue boats to get neighbors to safety.

WINK News reporter Maddie Herron spoke with community members who were rescued from their homes, many of whom carried pets and other items they cared about.

One of those neighbors was Dale and his family, and when he was asked how he felt, he said the whole situation felt a little overwhelming.

“You feel grateful, especially for the Englewood Fire Department, the first responders in the area,” he said. “You just take for granted every day what you have with your family, and we’re just glad to be safe: myself, my two kids, my son’s girlfriend, a dog and a lizard, so we all made it out safe.”

When asked whether it was difficult getting all those family members out of the house, he responded, “We didn’t expect the amount of surge we’ve seen. Rescuers were very prompt. We made a 911 call … We were stranded on our kitchen island as the water on the floor had an electric current running through it. Prompt, brought their boat in, cut the service to the house and were able to evacuate us.”

But of course, you can never get too comfortable when storms of this size roll through.

“You know, we had been monitoring the water levels for quite some time … with no evacuation zone in place. We felt pretty safe with our condition, considering what we had experienced in the past with hurricanes,” he said.

Dale explained how rescuers showed up with their inflatable raft boats and shined lights through the front windows to establish contact with them. Afterward, they could open the front door and guide the family onto the boat and out to safety.

For many people, the expectation for this storm was for some ponding on the roads, leading to some shock that the conditions could be bad enough to require rescue.

Dale told WINK he was surprised by the amount of water they had received, saying, “We had monitored many [storms] and watched the newscast and the WINK weather channel and had been very familiar with the predicted 3 to 5 feet of storm surge. As a matter of fact, with Idalia, I think we ended up with somewhere between 3 and 4 feet, so we felt pretty comfortable knowing our house was elevated a little bit higher than that,” Dale said.

WINK News also spoke with one of the lieutenants from Charlotte County Fire and EMS, who said they had 30 to 40 neighbors already rescued, and they are going back on the boats to survey if anyone else is left to save.