Carolyn J. Braden • 3 Minute Read
One Year Later: What We Learned From Hurricane Ian
Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere, clean up, clean up right now. This little phrase (which was a song I sang with my former students when it was clean up time at then end of my art class) stands out in my mind as being the song of the year for us. For one year, from September 28th, 2022 to September 28th 2023, we have been dealing with cleaning up, mandatory renovations, lawyers, insurance and more. Read on to learn what we learned in the past year from dealing with the natural disaster called Hurricane Ian.
After a hurricane, comes a rainbow
We documented our entire evacuation process of Hurricane Ian for four months journal style on this website. You can read about that journey by clicking here. This writing piece is dedicated to telling you about the major lessons we learned by experiencing a natural disaster during our evacuation time period and after we arrived back at our home on Sanibel Island, Florida.
Our roof has been tarped several times in one year
Our experience in dealing with Hurricane Ian is similar to many other’s experience, as we’ve spoken with many, many people in our area. However, keep in mind, this was our experience and many decisions that we made may work for you or not.
The side of siding that swooped away with Hurricane Ian
We did the best we could to navigate through it all (and still are learning things), and our results actually have been pretty good considering the level of damage to the entire SWFL area (some areas experienced 15 feet of surge!), so far. We hope we can inspire you to make good decisions that intuitively feel right for you in the event you ever experience a natural disaster. We encourage you to think with a level head during any traumatic event.
Check out our handy tool that could help your car tires post natural disaster below or via our YouTube channel @carolynjbraden:
1- Assess the Damage
We could not even get to our home on Sanibel post Hurricane Ian due to the Sanibel Causeway (the only road on and off Sanibel Island) being destroyed in several area. People were taking boats to their homes despite mud, nails, and very dangerous circumstances being all around Sanibel and its surrounding cities.
What our siding looked like post Hurricane Ian
We waited until the causeway was fixed (and thankfully we had a raised home that did not get flooded inside) but we’d recommend documenting your damage as fast as possible. If you can get to your house quickly (or are even still in it), take photos and videos before fixing anything. If you can, refrain from touching anything (so many people’s reaction is to instantly clean up) until you call your insurance adjustor.
Sanibel withstood flooding and severe wind damage
2- Have Phone Numbers on Standby
If you live anywhere in the world, a natural disaster can happen to you. Even a very strong thunderstorm can bring damage to your home and property. We’d recommend having a roofing company, a contractor, an electrician, a locksmith, and more “go-to” important numbers on hand. It’s not that you’ll ever need them, but having a list is helpful. Know about FEMA and what they can and cannot do for you by visiting their website.
We had our flooded pool professionally cleaned
We have home owners insurance and own our house,bl so FEMA could only offer us a loan. Having access to a loan from FEMA was helpful too and helped us get our A/C replaced, pool repaired/cleaned and our yard cleaned up. Our flood insurance covered some of it, but it wasn’t enough. We personally got zero “free” things from FEMA except some helpful resources.
We learned you can get a roof tarped for free (only certain roof styles though) via the Blue Roof program via Army Corp. Our roof was not eligible for this, but yours may be. FEMA will pay for damages not covered by insurance, but if you have insurance, you must use it first, then see if FEMA can help any more. If you don’t own a home, FEMA may be able to help you more.
The pool looked like new again after professional help
3- Public Adjustor or Lawyer or No Help?
If you have very little damage from a natural disaster (tornado, earthquake, hail, ect.), you may not need to get your home owners insurance involved at all especially if you have a high deductible. You may want to just pay for repairs yourself or do them yourself.
Tommy pressure washed all the mud and muck Ian left under our house
Or, you can call your insurance company (or familiarize yourself with your policy) and decide if you should work with them or not. However, if you have a significant amount of damage, you should consider hiring a public adjuster or a lawyer.
Due to the filthy flood waters, we had to throw a lot away
A public adjuster can be helpful if you know nothing about insurance. They act as a liaison for you and work with your insurance company to gain a fair settlement. We did this until our public adjuster went MIA (we think he took on too much work, but would not communicate this with us). We fired our public adjuster but paid him for the work he actually did, which was somewhat helpful. We then had to hire a lawyer team.
Our lawyer team was great. Public adjusters can be good, but keep in mind that they have no legal team behind them, so if something gets stuck, they may encourage you to hire a lawyer anyways. We’d skip the step of a public adjuster and go straight to a lawyer in the future.
We cleaned up our messy yard ourselves, then hired help to put it back together
We amicably reached a settlement with our insurance company thanks to the help of a great lawyer team. Again, you can work one on one solely with your insurance company. If they are doing a great job on communicating with you, then hang onto that company for the rest of your life!
We seemed to find entire roofs worth of shingle in our yard post Hurricane Ian
4- Read Everything
If you live in a city as strict as Sanibel on building codes and more, read everything! Even if you don’t, still, read everything. You may be sent lots of paperwork from your insurance company, your neighborhood (especially if you have an HOA), contractors, and more and we’d advise reading everything that crosses your desk.
A screw pine falling on our pool cage actually helped it not launch away
We learned about a Florida state law regarding a lien release called a Construction Lien. We saw some wording on a contract about it, and called our realtor (as we will be selling our house when repairs are completed) to learn more. We saw some strange wording on a FEMA document and called our liaison with FEMA to learn more about it. Ask people for help or do some online research if you need help in understanding something.
Shaking from Hurricane Ian caused a wall crack in our office
5- It’s Gonna Take A Lot of Time and Patience
We had enough damage that did require a lot of inspections (and our insurance team sent their own rounds of public adjustors), and this alone took lots of time but there were so many affected by Hurricane Ian. The damage spread from Sanibel to Captiva to Fort Meyers Beach, Pine Island and beyond.
We remediated the crack with ship lap
While you may take lots of photos (which we would recommend) of your damage, lots of others will arrive at your house to do the same. You may have a lot of people in and out of your house, which can be annoying, but be kind. Kindness goes far because some of the people you are working with may have experienced the natural disaster too. Emotional distress and trauma affects many in widespread disasters. We had some items stolen immediately post Hurricane Ian, which photos help us prove too.
Cleaning up our home and land after Hurricane Ian took months
There will be a lot of “hurry up and wait” style of time period. It seems as if everyone is not in a hurry, but in reality, there are just a lot of people in line. Sanibel won’t be fully back up and running at full capacity for an estimated 2 more years. That’s taking us into 2025. Time does heal though. We’ve learned that God always has a plan, and if you keep working and pushing, there is a rainbow on the other side of the rain.
Our patched roof leaked post a bad storm during this year
We are still dealing with some repairs. Even once we reached a settlement, it took three weeks to get our roof and siding permits approved. That’s not a typical amount of time, but Sanibel Island has been backed up in the permit office, so be prepared, again, to be patient if the disaster was widespread.
Illustration by Carolyn J. Braden post Hurricane Ian
Our roof (which did leak) and siding (the storm swooped and entire side off our house) are coming in October 2023, then we have been working over the course of the last year to repair our pool, landscaping, fix interior wall cracks, water damage, replace our A/C units, repair door jams, and more. Being DIYers for a long while and knowing how to fix a lot ourselves has been very helpful.
We tried to have a sense of humor about being patient during our Hurricane Ian experience. Watch our silly 15 second video featuring “There Will Come a Payday” song below:
We do love Sanibel, but do plan to move onto our next chapter in the state of Georgia. Both my husband and I agree that the natural disaster of Hurricane Ian happened during a 24-hour period, but the stress and the trauma still pings at our hearts now and then and it’s time for us to move on. Knowing what our ultimate decision is and having a plan to make it happen is very helpful.
If you plan to ever move into an area that is susceptible to natural disasters, know that it can happen to you. We knew a hurricane was always a possibility of moving to a tropical island, but of course we never thought it’d be one of the worst ones to hit the area in recorded history.
Among some things we grabbed to evacuate are things you may want to take note of. I have three binders with important information (one for our house, one for our pets and one for our health) and grabbed those, which were helpful. I also grabbed a first aid kit (I like the all-inclusive Bling Sting First Aid Clutch), all our medications and vitamins, pet food and medications, and other basic needs. In the future, I’d take my fire safe box too, as many homes were completely destroyed and we know we were VERY fortunate to still have a house standing.
We know how fortunate we were post Hurricane Ian
Moving to Sanibel Island was a long-awaited dream come true, and the fact that our dream didn’t quite work out the way we hoped, is okay. C’est la vie. We accept it. As I write this, I think of all the great people we met during this experience and how we’ve been able to help each other, and it warms my heart.
Watch our pool cleaning process post Hurricane Ian set to music in a 15 second video below:
I also think of all the animals we helped save post storm. We rescued many crabs from our pool that are in search of water they can tolerate after many bodies of water got fresh and salty mixes in them. We fixed our screens around our pool area to remedy this permanently as soon as we got the green light from our lawyer team. We’ve given fresh water to birds, rescued birds from other people’s pools and more. Our time in Sanibel was definitely not in vain.
Our next chapter will be the best as I know the best is yet to come. I can say this for ourselves as well as for the entire area affected by Hurricane Ian.
If you loved this article, we know you’ll love this one too: Steps To Take If a Fire Damages Your Home
Carolyn J. (C.J.) Braden is a regular contributor and editor for Carolyn’s Blooming Creations. She has been featured in numerous media publications such as InStyle Magazine, on HGTV, on Bustle.com, and more. She is the author of the books Georgia McMasters in Amethyst Lake Cemetery, How To Be Yourself: 3 Ways To Help You Being You, and the illustrator for the children’s book Bridging Connections. She is a former classroom teacher that now dedicates her life to educating others on how to live their most healthy, creative and happy life. Learn more about her visiting our About Us page.