FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — The members of the South Florida Urban Search and Rescue Team followed Hurricane Ian up the coast to Fort Myers Beach, where a raging storm surge destroyed homes and killed people who did not evacuate.
They set up a command post in the shadow of a Margaritaville Resort still under construction. They unfurled maps of the city divided into grids and split up areas to target next. They slept on cots, filling tents beside the Gulf of Mexico and close to the shattered fishing pier.
Clad in navy jackets, pants and bucket hats, the searchers traded long shifts in the sun. Some of them had been working for a week and didn’t know when their stint would end.
