Hurricane Ian: Witnessing the aftermath on Sanibel Island and Florida’s southwest coast | 60 Minutes

It has been 11 days since Hurricane Ian, a monster Category 4 storm, hit central Florida, even in a state that is no stranger to

hurricane

s, the destruction in the wake of Ian is staggering, over 100 deaths, the mostly by communities drowned in tatters, the price of recovery is estimated at more than $100 billion. We reached ground zero on Florida's

southwest

coast

, where Ian first made landfall and where the

hurricane

's fury was most severe. The story will continue at a time when the violence of Hurricane Ian hit Sanibel Island. The Sprecker family fled with little more than the clothes on their backs last Wednesday, a week after the Storm devastated the

island

, the family returned to see what was left of the place they had called home for almost 20 years, where are we, nor I can't even say it.

Ian cut the causeway connecting Sanibel to the mainland so the spreckers came back by boat, you wouldn't even know this is oh they invited us to go home with them to see the damage done when the Category 4 hurricane hit Florida. John Spricker told us the destruction was overwhelming, this place looks like it's been bombed and, you know, I remember our kids playing in the sand when they were a couple of years old. Melissa Sprecker told us that she had trouble finding her way. There is no bridge. There is no ferry at this time. there is no place to stay there is no running water there is no electricity there is no air conditioning there is nothing everyone on this

island

right now is homeless their house is just a block from the beach usually a few

minutes

walk they said but not this day the way It was covered with thick sticky mud, be careful with the mud because it will be very slippery. 6,500 people live on Sanibel, the place spreckers described as a tropical paradise is now a field of debris, cars tossed around like toys by the storm surge, stripped of the asphalt from its road. this was paved this was paved when they approached the house yes, the scene was surreal, a beautiful Florida day like the one Drew John and Melissa here from Wisconsin years ago, while the house and the life they built were destroyed in the sun .

I'm surprised they did it. They held pool parties in this yard They celebrated birthdays and graduations in these now roofless halls Exposing a lifetime's accumulations to the elements They are salvaging what memories they can take in a small boat Grandma Grandpa Photos of Grandma and Grandpa so they can having pictures and things that the kids have done and being able to take them, that's huge, yeah I'm floored that we have anything, have you been in contact with your insurance? Yes, can you rebuild what you lost? Although I don't know, I don't know, we don't even know if we want to, yes, really, I think a lot of people will leave.

These are the phones that ring off the hook on Monday morning. We get about 15, 15 calls a minute, Brian. Chapman owns Chapman Insurance Group, one of the largest independent insurance agencies in Southwest Florida, with about 30,000 clients, many of whom live on Sanibel Island and in hard-hit Fort Myers, seven of their employees lost their homes, their offices suffered water damage, and they were left without power in this hurricane. It had winds up to 150 miles per hour, it had a massive storm surge, how do those two arms of this hurricane impact the refunds that homeowners will receive? That's where it gets a little complicated because you have two policies, one for flood and one for wind, why is it so complicated?

Well, did the wind damage happen first or did the water rise and there was wind damage before it flooded? It's hard to know the answer to that question, and only 18 percent of Florida homeowners have flood insurance, so why so few? because it's expensive, but not as expensive as what just happened Chapman says he fears Ian will only exacerbate a persistent problem in Florida's insurance market. 80 percent of all homeowners insurance claims in the country are filed here. Most large insurers have greatly reduced small insurers. The six squeezed closed this year. What has all this affected premiums? Double-digit and triple-digit rate increases in the last 24 months.

My policy personally was thirty-five hundred dollars, seven thousand, and now ten thousand, and that's not including flood insurance. Who can afford that is not affordable? It is not sustainable. Yesterday we were on Sanibel Island and the destruction is widespread. If you are there, what hope do you have to recover from this? It will be a long road to recovery. Those who gave up insurance. I am sure there will be some who will sell their real estate or land. All of this was sparked by a hurricane that quickly became an electrified killer energized by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

It took Ian only two days to arrive. grew from a Category 1 storm to a Category 4 with 150 mile per hour winds that caused a storm surge that drowned

coast

al communities in 12 feet of water and was compounded by catastrophic rainfall that the storm dumped more than 20 inches above the central area. Florida was swelling rivers and flooding neighborhoods in a swath that stretched across the state. You knew this was going to be a monster. I did it when Ian approached Bobby Quinn, Tampa native, former Air Force weather forecaster, private pilot and founder of a technology company, he wanted to help, so he drove.

South, towards the heart of the hurricane, it is a little difficult to leave the place and he got more than he expected. He recorded this video with his phone. There was nowhere to go. There were trees flying when I was sitting on it. truck and the wind that would have overturned my truck if I had stopped buying that wall. I tried it at one point and the wheels came off the ground after 13 harrowing hours, he started putting his talents to work. Quinn runs a Tampa-based technology company. A startup called Paypixel that takes drone footage and organizes it into an app.

When Ian hit, he repurposed his view so evacuees could see images of their homes and assess the damage for free. You see the debris field. You see the destruction in the back. Wow! you can turn off the satellite images and see the previous event, this is what it looked like before and if we add our street level images, someone can click and see what that house looks like from the front after the storm. you have the whole event before, after ground level, that's right, after posting some of his work on social media, he was inundated with requests, more than 700 came from a densely populated spiral development 35 miles north of Sanibel called rotunda West, this is rotunda West, this is the neighborhood and the pink dots you see are each individual image that was taken in the neighborhood to build their database Quinn Incorporated satellite images with ground level photographs What did it take driving street by street so that huge circle that we saw you go through every dead end, going up and down, taking pictures on both sides of the street, every road, every house, how long did it take you?

It took me nine hours, 117 miles and how many pictures did you end up with just over 8,000. filmed inside some houses oh man Quinn's efforts did not go unnoticed it's a foot deep and I'll have to go back he told us a company of insurance and the Florida Emergency Operations Center contacted him looking for his information, why did you do this? If you've ever felt hopelessness, despair, or the anxiety that comes with the unknown, you know it's a terrible feeling. We know we can use technology in a way that hasn't really been used before to reach the right audience.

We loved ones and family want to call that anxiety for them a recipe for that can be found 12 miles northeast of hard-hit Fort Myers Babcock Ranch is the brainchild of green developer and former professional football player Sid Kitson, so when you look This building just went through a Category 4 hurricane Kitson and his partners purchased 91,000 acres in 2006, larger than Manhattan, with the dream of building the first fully sustainable, environmentally friendly hurricane-proof small city in the United States. United we are the first solar city in the United States we have a field that is 150 megawatts, but that is only part of the story, how many people live here now, about 5,000 people and eventually it will need to grow to about 50,000 people.

Kittson weathered the storm at his lakeside home in town. I remember sitting. here was the weather and the meteorologist says well this category of hurricane is now heading towards Babcock Ranch and not only is it heading towards Babcock Ranch but it will be on the east side of the wall which is the worst place to be. How long did the hurricane last? It lasted between eight and ten hours. You can barely hear it. He thinks he took this video with his iPhone. At the height of the storm, there were layers of white in the lake, so as soon as the sun came up the next morning, I jumped in.

I got in my car and started driving and the only damage was some fallen trees and some roof tiles, that's all, so our recovery was maybe a day. Babcock Ranch was designed to accommodate the Florida ecosystem with native plants and natural waterways. The drainage was built 25 to 30 feet above sea level to avoid storm surges. All electrical and telephone lines are buried. Aren't you lucky to be on a higher level than most parts of Florida that were leveled? Yes. I think that's important, but now when it comes to wind, flooding and rain, if that infrastructure is not built properly, there will be houses that will flood, there will be wind damage.

No one here was left without power. Sid Kitson took us to see this huge solar array, what you see is 440 acres, seven hundred thousand panels built by Florida Power and Light, they withstood Ian's brutal blows, there is a lot of water, but you can't see a single panel that has been damaged. The wind that came through here the last few days, gusts of 150 or more, gusts of 150 plus, and it didn't take a single panel out of here, which is really remarkable, after seeing the devastation in the Sanibel Island, it felt strange to see children playing in Here people in the parks have fun eating at Waterside restaurants while neighboring communities struggle with the

aftermath

of Ian, the deadliest hurricane since Katrina.