This Florida Island suffered heavy damage in Hurricane Ian. How its residents are overcoming the lack of government assistance:
'I wouldn't leave this island for anything'
Wright hopes the restaurant will reopen soon so she can get back to earning money. But she's not in a huge rush, she said. And it will probably be a while before tourists return to an island that everyone agrees is the closest thing you can get to the Florida Keys. Although no one was being forced out – and no one was being stopped from returning – many island residents suspect the government is deliberately withholding aid to force them out. Several residents who previously evacuated said they came back to ensure their homes weren't condemned by authorities in their absence.
In the hours after the storm passed, Synol and a group of men got permission to cut open storm-destroyed boats to siphon fuel for generators. A man whose semitractor-trailer was stuck on the island had been running his diesel engine to power a Starlink terminal, allowing people to connect to thein the small area around the damaged Bob and Annie's Boatyard on Stringfellow Road.
“In some areas, it reminds me of a tornado," Wright said, pausing at a destroyed trailer where her best friend lived."Some homes are totally destroyed and others have practically no damage.”Driving out of the park, Wright paused to watch as Curtis and Angela Eggleston carried their belongings out of their damaged trailer. They rode out the storm in their Jeep Wrangler after the trailer got damaged, parking snug up to a neighbor's concrete garage wall for safety.
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