All that’s left of Ana Kapel’s home not far from the once lively Times Square of Fort Myers Beach are her porch steps.
At The Pier Peddler, a gift shop that Kapel managed, she gazed at the wreckage of the building that stood there on Fifth Street since 1985, talking with her friend Candy Miller, a local muralist, about what happened to neighbors whose lives were claimed by Hurricane Ian.
“Your landlord, last I heard, she was in the bathtub and the walls were crumbling around her,” Miller told Kapel, in shock, Friday afternoon.
