The day Hurricane Ian hit Florida, Tom Cummiskey, 87, had evacuated his Fort Myers trailer and was driving about 35 miles east from the coast, fielding calls on his flip phone from friends and family urging him to get off the road.
“I told him just to stay there,” said son Jerry Cummiskey, recalling the call he had when his father pulled into the inland town of LaBelle around lunchtime on Wednesday, Sept. 28. “He said he was going to get a room. But he didn’t.”
It was the last time the two spoke, ending a 24-hour stretch where Jerry Cummiskey and his wife, Teresa, thought they had helped steer Tom to safety from afar as they kept in touch with him from their home in New Jersey.
