Historic Boca Grande,
an exclusive vacation destination for presidents, movie
stars and old money elite, suffered extensive damage from
Hurricane Ian, but the island's infrastructure, along with
most buildings and landmarks, largely is intact and should
be able to recover, according to those surveying the storm's
aftermath.
The only agency
conducting recovery efforts on the island is the 20-person
Boca Grande Fire Department, which has begun going
door-to-door looking for survivors and assessing the damage.
As of Friday
afternoon, Boca Grande Fire Lieutenant Lee Cooper said there
were no deaths on the island and no buildings were
completely destroyed other than a restaurant that burned
down, but the Fire Department was only 10% through its
detailed survey.
The bridge to Boca Grande weathered the storm without
problems, providing access to the island, although as of
Friday there still was a significant amount of standing
water on the main road, starting at the base of the bridge.
A reporter visiting the island wasn't
able to reach the south end where all of the landmarks are
located because of the flooded road, but spoke with Cooper
at the base of the bridge on the island's north end and with
Ken and Barb Burnette in their heavily damaged condo perched
along the causeway connecting Boca Grande to the mainland.
Ken Burnette is president of the homeowner's association for
the Boca Grande North condo complex. |
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Both Cooper and the
Burnettes had visited the south end of the island and
described the damage as severe but not as bad as other Lee
County coastal communities such as Sanibel and Fort Myers
Beach, where storm surge scoured the landscape.
“Everything that you would think of (as) Boca Grande is
still there," Cooper said.
Historic buildings
such as the Port Boca Grande Lighthouse built in 1890 and
the Gasparilla Inn & Club – which was built in 1911 and has
hosted President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush,
Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Katherine Hepburn and many other
famous people – survived Hurricane Ian, according to Cooper.
"There's damage there," Burnette said of the Inn. "Now how
extensive it is, we don't know."
Cooper didn't think the Inn or Lighthouse sustained major
damage.
The Gasparilla Inn owners have a separate bakery that was
damaged when the island's cell phone tower collapsed and
fell on it. The cell tower collapse is the most notable
infrastructure damage on the island, Cooper said. All of the
island's roads survived Ian.
“The integrity of the
actual structures of the roads are fine, bridges are fine,"
Cooper said. |
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The South Beach Bar & Grille, a popular
beachfront restaurant on the south end of the island, burned
to the ground and was totally destroyed during the storm.
Pictures show all that remains is the foundation and charred
debris.
The structure already was destroyed by the time firefighters
arrived on the scene after the storm, Cooper said. They
didn't have any water to fight the fire anyway. The island
has no water, electricity or cell phone service.
Firefighters are communicating with each other through
radios.
"Basically we’re not in contact with the rest of the world,"
Cooper said.
Boca Grande appears to have suffered a significant storm
surge, but not at the catastrophic level seen in some
communities further south.
"We're not talking Fort Myers Beach," Cooper said.
Burnette spoke to a storm chaser who traveled from Chicago
to document Ian, weathering the hurricane in a car parked on
the causeway. The storm chaser said the water was knee deep
on the causeway road right after the storm and chest deep on
other parts of the road.
"It came all the way across the road," Burnette said of the
water.
It's not clear if the storm surge impacted any beachfront
properties.
Some buildings were severely damaged by Ian's heavy winds,
though.
At least four of the seven condo buildings in the Burnette's
complex have major roof damage, with sections where the
shingles and underlying plywood completely ripped off,
leaving the roof trusses visible.
The Burnettes have owned their condo for 10 years.
They used to live in Fort Lauderdale and used the Boca
Grande condo as a weekend getaway. With their children now
grown and moved out, they decided to sell their Fort
Lauderdale house and move to the Boca Grande condo
full-time.
Ken Burnette said they fell in love with the island's "Old
Florida charm."
They completely renovated their condo before moving in a few
months ago. Now they're wondering if they can salvage all
the hard work that went into getting the place exactly how
they wanted it.
Sitting Friday in the condo, which was renovated in a modern
style with immaculate, high-end fixtures and furnishings,
they looked around and wondered about the road ahead. The
damage wasn't especially noticeable on the inside at first
glance, but it was everywhere.
The Burnettes have one condo unit above them. Rainwater
poured through the building's damaged roof into that
top-floor unit and was leaking down the walls of the
Burnette's condo.
When they returned home Thursday after evacuating to North
Port, there was about six inches of water on the Burnette's
floor. Water still covered part of the floor Friday and
there was a musty smell in the condo. Other condo units had
sections of outer walls that came off.
“This is going to be a massive undertaking when it comes to
how do we repair all of this?” Ken Burnette said.
As condo association president, he is preparing to take the
lead on a long rebuilding process that starts with having an
engineer evaluate the buildings to see "are they livable?
What will it take to make them livable?"
"It’s just, it’s a nightmare," Burnette said.
Yet Burnette believes Boca Grande will recover and return to
its former glory as one of the most charming and exclusive
of Florida's island communities.
Boca Grande was founded as a port community for shipping
phosphate, which is used for fertilizer, mined along the
Peace River. Work began in 1905 to extend a railroad to the
island. It later became popular with wealthy fishermen
because of its status as one of the best places to hook
tarpon, a prized game fish.
The Bush family frequented the island. Fox News host Tucker
Carlson has a home there, as does Clemson University
football coach Dabo Swinney and University of Alabama
football coach Nick Saban.
George H.W. Bush was vacationing in Boca Grande in 2006 when
former President Gerald Ford died. Bush gave a press
conference on the steps of the Gasparilla Inn with his son,
former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to discuss Ford, the man who
appointed him director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Based on what Burnette has seen, his condo complex was hit
the hardest. He said some of the buildings in his complex
may not be livable but “downtown and a lot of the other
areas are going to be just fine.”
Boca Grande is just to the north, across the Boca Grande
Pass, of where Ian made landfall on the island of Cayo
Costa. It experienced some of the strongest winds.
“The good news in all of this is that despite the power of
what went through, the island doesn’t need to rebuild, it
just needs to repair, it isn’t that bad," Burnette said,
adding: "Given what just went through here, I'm grateful."
While acknowledging that "everybody's got some work to do,"
Burnette said that "Boca Grande itself, I think it's ok."