‘‘Twas a gloomy day on Marco Island, the evacuation was ordered. Hurricane Ian knocked on the island’s doorstep, and families evacuated, the next 2 days will be total pandemonium. Few brave individuals stayed on the island, and I was one. I woke up at 7 in the morning to my mom telling me to get up because the water was rising. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Then 15 minutes later, I decided to look for myself. I looked out the back window, and sure enough, water was 2 feet from my pool. In the front of the house, it was 3 feet from the front door. I started moving things from the bottom floor to the upstairs, preparing for total flood damage.

Our neighbors are on a hill, so my Mom sent me and my brother to their house while they finished getting some last-minute things together. We trudged through the murky water, which ended up getting to my waist. 20 minutes later, my Mom and Dad still hadn’t left the house. I called from my cell phone but the signal was out, so I resorted to the only other option, I got one of the neighbor’s rafts, and went over there. My parents were fine, they were just taking pictures of stuff for insurance purposes. Finally, they crossed, and we were all safe.

The water entered our house before high tide hit. Then the Realization hit that if the storm surge continued we could lose everything. We waited at our neighbor’s house for 7 hours before making the walk back through the then settling water, to get to our house. Water had gotten in, but it was not as severe as it could have been. We started rearranging things and seeing what got damaged. We were blessed to receive very minor damages, nothing major. Not everyone on the island was as fortunate as us, and especially areas in Naples and Fort Myers.