Beth Booker’s mom didn’t want to leave her Fort Myers, Fla., beach house. Carole McDanel, a 78-year-old retiree, had a stocked pantry, hurricane shutters and new impact windows. The worst of Hurricane Ian was supposed to hurtle north toward Tampa, she had told her daughter. Why not tough it out at her home of 24 years?
Then a storm surge swept the island communitywhich took a direct hit Wednesday, and flooded McDanel’s ground floor. She texted photos to Booker, a 32-year-old publicist in Naples, Fla., of the brown water creeping up her stairs.
