The effects of Hurricane Ian in Florida are still clearly being felt. A Swiss tells how he survived the storm.
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the essentials in brief
- Hurricane Ian destroyed numerous homes and entire cities in Florida in early October.
- A Swiss emigrant has only now had internet once more and is telling Nau.ch regarding the storm.
- “You’d rather not experience something like that,” he warns.
In early October, Hurricane Ian hit the US state of Florida, causing a swath of devastation. Several cities were almost completely destroyed.
Shortly following the hurricane, Nau.ch tried to contact some Swiss people living on site – only now did they get an answer: “Until a short time ago we had no electricity or internet,” explains Marcel Stadtmann.
The Swiss, his wife and their three cats have lived in Cape Coral for ten years. The city was particularly hard hit – this is where Hurricane Ian made landfall. For example, there is hardly anything left of the neighboring tourist hotspot Fort Myers Beach.
Lots of people left homeless following Ian
“Fortunately we had little damage, mainly fallen palm trees,” said the Swiss who had emigrated. “But some of our friends here have been homeless since Ian.”
“It’s a huge catastrophe,” he adds. “Virtually all ports, many houses and even the bridge to Sanibel are totally destroyed.” The island of Sanibel, offshore from the city, took the full force of the hurricane.
“You have to imagine this power,” says Stadtmann regarding pictures of a destroyed port. The boats are each up to 30 meters long.
Accordingly, he was particularly shocked by comments from Swiss and Europeans on the Internet regarding Ian: “No one has probably been affected, been there or has any idea what such a hurricane does.”
Have you ever witnessed a hurricane?
“You’d rather not experience something like that”
In many cases, non-American users would have made fun of the allegedly poorly built wooden houses in Florida. Stadtmann only replies to these comments: “What would a scenario look like if a hurricane thundered from Rapperswil towards Zurich at 225 km/h and pushed a 3-meter tidal wave in front of it?”
“It’s very simple: you’d rather not experience something like that. Unless you’re tired of life!”
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