Hurricane Ian aftermath: Boat recoveries ongoing in Southwest Florida

ST. JAMES CITY, Fla. - When Hurricane Ian swept across Southwest Florida, thousands of boats were tossed about by wind and storm surge. Four months later, the clean-up is far from over. 

Boats are still tangled in Florida's mangrove trees, yachts remain inside homes, and many damaged vessels across Lee County are still unclaimed. 

"We are on East Riverside Drive in Fort Myers, Florida. This is one of my dear friends and client's home, Brianne Casey. We're here today because The Sabbaticus, flagged from Treasure Island, Florida, is inside her house," said Kynse Agles, a Real Estate Broker Associate. "It's an abandoned, or what they call orphaned, Hurricane Ian boat. In order for her to begin rebuilding her home... the boat needs removed."

"She's contacted all of the authorities: FWC, FEMA, the city, the state, and no one has yet shown up to claim the boat or remove the vote from the property," Agles said. 

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Casey is currently living with her family in Virginia, because she can't begin rebuilding until the boat is removed.

"We have so many residents that are currently homeless, and it's because of situations like this," Agles said. "Someone needs to claim their boat, or FWC needs to come and pick it up so that you know, she can get back to rebuilding her home and back into her neighborhood. She's an emergency room nurse. She worked straight through COVID for two years, double shifts through COVID. She's now working in Virginia as a travel nurse because that's where her parents live and where she has a roof over her head, but she wants to come home to Ft. Myers."

Thousands of boats were damaged in Hurricane Ian, with hundreds brought to the Monroe Canal Marina in St. James City, Fla. 

St. James City is located on Pine Island, one of the barrier islands in Lee County hit hard during Hurricane Ian. 

"Typically at my marina at this time of year, and just in general, we'd be selling bait, tackle, and fuel. We have a minimal amount of that stuff still here. However, the storm displaced so many of those things, including our roof, and so now we're not able to be open for normal operation," said Staci Stevens, co-owner of the Monroe Canal Marina. "We realized that early on, and so [we] had to pivot and come up with a different plan. For us, that different plan meant removing vessels from our local waterways and getting us back to normal in the long term."

Staci and Craig Stevens own the Monroe Canal Marina. The couple transformed their business from recreational to recovery after Hurricane Ian. The marina now partially serves as a "boat graveyard".

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"Some of those vessels are staying on site for a long period of time, and some will hopefully get back in the water relatively quickly," said Stevens.

The next phase of boat recovery will focus on hard-to-reach vessels; boats that are tangled in Mangroves or still underwater. The next step will also focus more on uninsured boats and unclaimed vessels. 

In total, full recovery could take several years. 

"So we really started to clean up the month after the storm. So we're looking at three months of cleanup, and we're definitely not done yet," Stevens said. "I would say probably a year, possibly even longer, for the long term cleanup and then trying to get us get back to the vacation destination without all those debris in the water is super important for us to be able to continue to be that destination location."

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According to the Florida Wildlife Center, imagery from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has identified over 7,500 potentially displaced vessels. FWC officers have assessed over 4,200 vessels on the waters of the state. 

"Our deployed officers continue the mission by locating owners and delivering notification of rights packets and waiver forms," said FWC Boating and Waterways Section Representative Capt. Travis Franklin. "The assessment phase is all but complete at this point, though we do have new DVs pop up here and there almost daily."