“I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?” went the well-known Creedence Clearwater Revival refrain, sung by a local guitarist perched on his stool inside MudBugs Cajun Kitchen on Sanibel Island, Florida.
The island saw more than its fair share of rain during Hurricane Ian, which inundated the island with 12 feet of storm surge and flooded some homes up to the roofs. The storm has become a fact of life and a collective lived experience for everyone in this area, the elephant in the room that nobody can stop talking about.
After all, it was the costliest hurricane in Florida history, blamed for $112.9 billion in damage and 66 direct deaths, according to a National Hurricane Center report. Many Lee County residents cut their losses and left the area, but the real theme of human resilience comes through in those who chose to stay and rebuild at whatever cost.
