FORT MYERS, Fla. — Just days after Hurricane Ian struck, a crowd of local residents gathered under a huge banyan tree at a motel’s outdoor tiki bar for drink specials and live music. Less than 10 miles away, crews were finishing the search for bodies on a coastal barrier island. Even closer, entire families were trying to get comfortable for the night in a mass shelter housing more than 500 storm victims.
On a coast where a few miles meant the difference between life and death, relief and ruin, the contrasting scenes of reality less than two weeks since the hurricane’s onslaught are jarring, and they point to the way disaster can mean so many different things to different people.
