“When this monster approached we felt terror. It was a terrifying experience. Pretend that a giant locomotive passes by your house. The roar of the wind is brutal. It intimidates you and makes you feel like a worm in the face of that brutality of nature”.
(Read here: Ian: Biden says it could be Florida’s ‘deadliest hurricane in history’)
With those words, Mario Javier Quinteroorn Colombian residing in Florida for 22 yearstold EL TIEMPO how he experienced the passage of hurricane ian que this Wednesday hit with winds of up to 240 kilometers per hour the southern United States.
(See also: Florida: Man Died Trying to Drain His Pool During Hurricane Ian)
His house, located in Cape Coralis precisely on the same path that the eye of the storm took when Ian made landfall in Florida across the southwestern part of the state. Authorities told him and his family that they were in an evacuation-optional zone.
“Our house is concrete and built on a good elevation, we put up wind shutters and decided to stay,” he says.
When this monster approached we felt terror. It was a terrifying experience. Pretend that a giant locomotive passes by your house.
Along with his wife and son, this Colombian who works in the health sector spent and survived the worst hours from the passage of the hurricane sheltered in his house made of concrete.
“We felt the gusts of wind hitting the house and we experienced a beautiful calm when we were right in the center of the hurricane. But later, we felt the storm again in a much more brutal way. It was like it was never going to end,” she adds.
For Mario Quintero, the hours they lived under Ian’s brutal winds were harrowing, as reflected in his voice as he relates his experience to this newspaper. When the worst was over, he and his family took to the streets and saw a scene of destruction.
“You don’t know where to look, the landscape has changed. There was destruction, road signs on the floor. It is a terrifying and devastating thing that compresses your soul, ”she says.
The roof of one of his neighbors was destroyed. In the patio of his house, an oak tree planted for more than a decade was completely knocked over, damaging the electricity cables. In addition, some lemon and mango trees that he had completely disappeared from his garden.
As in 2.7 million other Floridianshis house was also left without electricity. And so far there is no drinking water.
As some streets were passable, they decided this Thursday to go to the town of Weston to protect themselves.
“Our area experienced tolerable flooding, which could reach the car door. But in Naples, for example, the water reached people’s shoulders and buried cars.”
Although there is still no official balance from the authorities, and it is still early to assess the damage, Storm Ian is already considered one of the worst in Florida.
“We have two deaths that are not yet confirmed, because we do not know if they are related to the storm,” although it is “probable,” he said. Ron DeSantisthe state governor.
“We have never seen flooding like this,” he said.
“Some areas, like Cape Coral, the city of Fort Myers, were flooded and really devastated by this storm,” the governor continued, noting the “historic” damage.
Although Mario Quintero had already lived through other hurricanes there in Florida, such as the powerful Charley of 2004, he had never experienced such devastation as the one left by Ian.
“What we saw in the streets was an apocalyptic thing. I don’t want it to happen again and I won’t stay in my house again when a hurricane comes,” said this Colombian who survived the passage of this storm that is now heading towards Georgia and South Carolina.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
TIME
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