Former Swift Current broadcaster experiences brunt of Hurricane Ian

It's been a life-altering week for a past Swift Current resident after Hurricane Ian devastated parts of southern Florida.

Beth Jarrell left her Fort Myers residence last Tuesday morning after Lee County sent out evacuation notices before the powerful storm made landfall.

"That included my apartment, my parent's house on Sanibel [Island], I had to leave there too," she explained. "I scrambled to pack a bag and get the dogs in the car. Already the wind was starting to come and the rain was coming down at that point."

Beth and her two dogs, Skippy and Toni
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Jarrell, who lived in Swift Current from 2015 to the summer of 2017, headed to safety in Miami to wait out the hurricane unsure what the future would hold.

On Saturday she received a letter from Sanibel Straits (her apartment company) informing her there would be no power or water for weeks to come. They also recommended everyone evacuate and find temporary shelters.

"The apartment complex itself received two feet of storm surge," she said. "Most of their cars are gone. So the trouble is, even though it's not a safe place to live, people don't have much of an option because they don't have a car to get them anywhere."  

The former Swift Current Online/Eagle 94.1 employee returned to her apartment yesterday to gather belongings. As she travelled down the highway into Fort Myers, she was taken aback by the sheer devastation the category four hurricane caused.

Dead fish in the parking lot of her apartment

“It was like driving through a war zone," she described. "Street lights are out, trees everywhere, shingles on the road, you see crumbled buildings.

"People are desperate, people are hungry, people need water, people need gas, people are just trying to get out... There's boats in the middle of the road, there are Sea-Can containers, and the fish from the ocean are everywhere."     

Aside from the apartment complex that she resided in, her parent's house on Sanibel Island is worse off.

“We see from satellite images that the roof is still mostly on, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything," she said. "All we have is an image of the top of the house. There could be holes in the siding and the stairs could be demolished."

Jarrell's partner house on Sanibel pictured in the middle

The graduate of the University of Washington spoke with one of her parent's neighbours who rode out the storm, and he mentioned the water reached 14 feet at its peak. That's the height of her family's home, which sits on stilts.

Jarrell has spent the last few years working at the Sanibel Public Library as a reference and archives librarian. She’s unsure what her employment will look like going forward as the lone road to the island has been destroyed in multiple places.

"Work is a big question for me right now," she said. "The library is still standing, because it's built like a fortress."

Workers from the library, including Jarrell, have been able to provide members with e-books and some services even with the facility closed for the near future.

The lone positive takeaway from the disaster for her was seeing the unlimited support headed towards the Fort Myers area yesterday.

"Seeing the sheer amount of people coming from other states and other parts of the state to provide aid," she said. "Traffic was bad because there was food trucks and restoration services and people with regular vehicles hauling countless bottles of water, generators, and gas."      

Anyone interested in helping relief efforts can do so by clicking here.