Sanibel Resident Survives Hurricane Ian: ‘I Should Have evacuated’

The mandatory evacuation DID NOT come late. She had over 24 hours notice and that is PLENTY of time to evacuate. She CHOSE NOT TO.

I do not live in Florida and I heard officials telling people to evacuate well ahead of the hurricane. I cannot understand why people refuse to listen. People want to blame others for bad decisions. I am glad she survived.

I live in Lee county and can say without a doubt that evacuation notices went out two days in advance of this storm. I live inland and even our area received continuous alerts via automated messages to evacuate and seek shelter. It’s easy to blame the system and hard accept a poor decision. I was annoyed and impressed at the amount of information provided via alerts before and during this storm. The system didn’t fail us. Our stubborn believes based on previous experience however did.

NEVER STAY ON A BARRIER ISLAND DURING A HURRICANE.....NEVER!

I can’t stand that people try to blame someone else…it did not come too late she just decided to stay….I live in Tampa and I watched my weather guy tell us it looks like it is making a slight turn to the right 2 days before. This was one of the slowest moving hurricanes I have ever witnessed, being so big and slow that is why so much damage.

This woman paid no attention to warnings and just assumed everything would be okay. You don't mess around when a 150mph Cat 4 Monster is at your door, when her power went out at 7am she had HOURS to evacuate!

I live near there and kept a close eye on the hurricane track. The center of the track was almost directly over Sanibel a good 24 hours before it hit and the island was in the probability cone for days. Category 4 winds of over 140 mph and storm surge of 15-18 feet were projected well in advance for Sanibel and the surrounding area. Sanibel is a glorified sand bar that sits literally three feet above sea level. An evacuation order was given the day before it hit. I'm glad she survived but I wish people would take things like this a little more seriously.

As a 71 year old seeing Ian on MyRadar app the massive area covered days BEFORE it hit any one in the whole state should have evacuated.

Any one who is Educated on Hurricaines would know that if you live on a barrier island you need to evacuate! Period! In this case there was ample warning that Ian was going to hit the west coast of Florida. If your on a barrier island on the west coast you had plenty of time to pack up and leave.

If you tell a 5 year old to MOVE OUT THE WAY they'll heed the warning and be scared because of the unsurety of events that may follow. How many warnings do adults need?

You need a mandatory evacuation order from the government to tell you to evacuate??? That storm was HUGE!!! People all over the world were watching it! You were told to get out, you live in an island, you know a hurricane can change course, and you know meteorologists ALWAYS predict the weather wrong or at least 95 percent of the time! Use common sense. Take responsibility for yourselves!!!

We were told to evacuate several days before people chose to ignore the evacuation message

Actually, it was not too late to evacuate. The hurricane was tracked all the way for days in advance. It made a clear turn toward Sanibel more than 48 hours before landfall. So, she just wasn’t paying attention.

What part of “Category 4” did these people not understand?

One of those people that you cannot tell anything. And she makes the news.

Mandatory evacuation….mandatory? I am very glad that you survived, and very sorry you went through such a terrifying ordeal. When you live on an island, a couple feet above sea level, and a hurricane is coming do you really need a mandatory evacuation ORDER?

Sanibel was always on the evacuation area. Even if the storm continued north and turned at Tampa, it would still traveling right over Sanibel. She just didn't listen.

I have been a resident of Central Florida since 1986 and have seen a number of hurricanes, including Andrew. When I saw this one coming and heard the REAL reporters (ie: Ryan Hall) on YouTube talk about Ian having a mind of its own, I started to prep a week before. My grown sons did not help to prep because they thought I was being ridiculous. These things CAN TURN at any time. Yes, meteorologists usually have it right, but they are predictors - NOT wizards. Now that we see what happened, my sons realize why I did the prep that I did. Perhaps we have gotten too comfortable here in Florida with our largely accurate predictions of where these hurricanes are going, and people that should have left the area trusted the landfall location they thought it was going to be. Just remember that meteorologists do not have a crystal ball that sees into the future. I was saying, "get the hell out of any coastal area on the west side" TWO DAYS before it hit. If I had been anywhere over there, I would have gone to the other side of the state ... or central at LEAST. I guess we need to be reminded that mother nature does whatever it wants.

She did not listen to the warnings and had plenty of time to evacuate. She almost died because she made a foolish choice to ignore the evacuation order.

Evacuation came late? We had days to observe the cone of this storm. I'm glad she's okay. I can't imagine riding out that storm alone.