Arcadia residents reflect on Hurricane Ian over 2 years later

Arcadia sits 50 miles from the coast. It’s a small, mighty, remote town. People there survived Helene and Milton with minor impacts, but their Ian story is one that doesn’t get told often or enough.

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The Peace River, which weaves in and out of Arcadia, brought extreme flooding to homes, turning the town into an island.

Arcadia is surrounded by farmland, but in the days following Hurricane Ian, you couldn’t tell. When the rain came, flooding came, and pretty soon, much of the town was submerged, making Arcadia an island cut off from everything else.

“I don’t know if they’re living or not. It was underwater,” said Arcadia resident Marc Joseph.

It was a race against time.

“We opened the door,” said Marc Joseph. “All the goats were up in the corner trying to get air.”

Marc and Meagan Joseph saved all six of their goats with the help of Evan, a courageous neighbor they will never forget.

“We left Megan there holding these ginormous goats,” said Marc Joseph. “They’re 200 pounds, screaming. They’re screaming their lungs off in a jammed boat at idle speed to just get him out of here, to get him up to a higher, dry ground. We did this for two hours with people that I hardly knew, and we lost one chicken.”

Julie Yerington knows the Peace River flooding well. She built her home 9 feet up after she lost everything in Hurricane Irma in 2017.

“I had 4 feet of water inside the house,” said Yerington. “A tornado lifted the backside of my roof.”

Yerington stayed on higher ground at a friend’s house during Ian and said it took two to three months for the water to recede.

“The craziest thing I saw was people with water literally up to the horse’s neck,” said Yerington. “Them trying, they were on a boat, and they’re trying to lead the horses out, and just like, oh, my goodness gracious. It was wild.”

Many, like Yerington and the Josephs, moved to Arcadia for the small-town feel. It’s a place where no one is a stranger. They have a simple farm life filled with animals and acres of land.

“It’s wonderful everywhere you go. People, they’re all so friendly,” said Yerington. “If you want to say silver lining, the people that come out and volunteer, they’re angels. They’re absolutely angels.”

The town of Arcadia is still healing and rebuilding like many parts of Southwest Florida, but Ian didn’t break them.

“I would say that I saw the most amazing things in the most horrible time of somebody’s life. Where you’re at your absolute worst, there are people that make it absolutely so much better. That is the story,” said Marc Joseph.