Florida household recounts escaping residence throughout Hurricane Ian

Households in Florida are choosing up the items after Hurricane Ian ravaged the state this week, with one household saying they misplaced “every thing” after their residence’s foundations crumbled within the staggering storm surge. 

Ian made landfall Wednesday afternoon as a Class 4 storm over the west coast of Florida, leaving in its wake greater than a dozen individuals useless, destroyed houses, flooded streets and hundreds of thousands with out energy. 

The Gutierrez household of Fort Myers Seaside, Florida, took video footage of the storm’s harm of their residence displaying their belongings, tables and furnishings strewn about in excessive, muddy flood waters. 

Maribel Gutierrez, the mom of the household, instructed MSNBC she and her husband and her 4 youngsters held arms in a series as they escaped their residence within the midst of the ferocious hurricane in the hunt for increased floor. 

She mentioned they needed to go away after they felt the inspiration of their residence transfer and the partitions begin to come down. 

“We had been calm in our home till 1 p.m. and at 2:30 p.m., kind of, we got here out,” she mentioned.

When the household opened their door, 3 to 4 ft of water got here in they usually had been met with howling winds, she recalled.

“We ran out — my youngsters and I holding arms — and we got here to a home that has a second flooring and a laundry [area],” she mentioned.  

“The water, we had been being moved left and proper, and we generally misplaced our grip however we had been in a position to seize onto one another as soon as once more,” Maribel mentioned. “And we acquired to that, thank God, two-story construction and we went to a laundry and we had been there for 5 hours with panic as a result of the water saved arising and saved arising.”

She mentioned she and her members of the family had been crying as they waited the storm out. 

“It was actually actually ugly, so horrible. The home nearly fell. It opened up, the inspiration nearly got here up, all of it acquired destroyed and minimize,” Maribel mentioned. “We misplaced every thing. We’re left with not one single factor.”

Her daughter Liliana Gutierrez mentioned that when the household walked out into the hurricane, she needed to simply “deal with the place we needed to go” and “not take into consideration what was round.” 

Liliana mentioned at one level she feared for the more serious, however “I needed to pull myself collectively and get by it.”

Maribel recalled by tears how her son was crying within the hurricane and instructed her, “Mommy, don’t let me die.”

Regardless of the immense loss, Maribel mentioned, “God protected us.”

The household is staying at a pal’s home, which additionally suffered harm within the storm, stays with out energy and had the home windows blown out.

Ian’s path of destruction is just not but over because the hurricane is anticipated to make landfall in South Carolina on Friday.