ENGLEWOOD
Englewood resident Courtney Long has dealt with a few storms throughout her life, but Hurricane Ian was different.
Long said she was in Florida during Hurricanes Irma, Andrew and Hugo. But what Long didn’t know at the time, like countless other Southwest Florida residents, was just how powerful Hurricane Ian was.
Yang became a chaotic force of total destruction, wreaking havoc and laying waste to nearly all of Southwest Florida.
“You look at a trailer park and it’s mostly underwater,” Long said.
Long, like many others, tried to escape before Yan’s devastation and anger reached their full potential.
“We were driving for the first probably an hour and a half when it hit trying to get out of there,” Long said
Hurricane Ian had just begun to make landfall on the southwest coast of Florida, and it was clear to Long that she had to leave.
“We barely got out of there, I don’t know how we got out of there,” Long said. “By the grace of God we got out of there.”
Not mincing words about how she felt it was handled, Long put it very succinctly for all to hear.
“They evacuated us too late, ultimately,” Long said.