FORT MYERS, Fla. — On the vacation island resorts of Sanibel and Captiva, rescuers flew in on helicopters because the roads from the mainland of Southwest Florida had collapsed into San Carlos Bay. To the south, Fort Myers Beach, once a lively town center of fish restaurants and bars, was reduced to a debris field of concrete blocks, shredded wood and broken tiles, its pier stripped down to a skeleton of pilings.
In Orlando, Hurricane Ian’s winds carried less of a punch, but rain came down with unrelenting fury, flooding popular lakes, submerging streets neck deep, and forcing dramatic rescues for motorists trapped in their cars.
The snapshots of devastation emerged as Florida began to assess the damage caused by Ian, which made landfall in Southwest Florida with punishing winds of 155 miles per hour, churning across the state with torrential rains before emerging into the Atlantic Ocean as a tropical storm on Thursday afternoon.
