In the early 1980s, a series of drug raids dubbed Operation Everglades sent dozens of residents to prison and resulted in the seizure of half the town’s fishing fleet, according to the Naples Daily News.Ī decade later, a ban on catching mullet in large nets stymied the commercial fishing economy in the town.Īnd here were more hurricanes: In 1992, Andrew. Wilma in 2005. 'THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS WE'RE SAFE': Floridians escape Ian at casino on edge of Everglades. But that was just one of the challenges the city would face over the decades. “But obviously not.”ĭonna hit Everglades City in 1960 with 150 mph winds, causing devastation that helped move the Collier County seat from Everglades City to East Naples. I told him that when Hurricane Donna came through, I was 11, so maybe it would be 70 more years before we had another one,” he said. “When Hurricane Irma came through, my youngest grandson was 11. But it was a storm he didn’t expect to see so soon. Rick Collins, 72, a longtime fisherman, said the storm ultimately could be good for crabbing by stirring up the sea floor. Residents and business owners of Everglades City clean up from Hurricane Ian. “They never talk about Everglades,” Gengenbach said, comparing the public and media focus after weather events with the attention given to the town's larger, ritzier neighbors to the north. Gengenbach and others said Everglades City hasn’t gotten a lot of attention – but that didn’t surprise many in this small but resilient community that has weathered everything from a decades-old reputation for smuggling to a history of devastating strikes by hurricanes. THERE ARE 'NO EASY FIXES' IN FLORIDA: But could Hurricane Ian's havoc bring a call for better planning? Though Ian didn’t cause the catastrophic damage seen farther north, the surge of seawater tore through the first floors of homes, sparked a fire at a two-generation airboat business and sent neighbors scrambling to rescue one another in johnboats that sped atop a city turned into a lake. Gengenbach, 55, spent Friday clearing mud and ruined food from her store after Hurricane Ian's storm surge swept through the hardscrabble crab fishing community, the last town before Florida’s southwest coast dissolves into the Everglades and mangrove islands. Not far below it, she pointed to the latest waterline left days earlier. – On the door frame of Petra Gengenbach’s 1960s-era supermarket Right Choice, “Irma 2017” is scrawled next to a black line.
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