PINE ISLAND, Florida — Cigarette dangling from her fingers, Christine Wright slowed her battered Oldsmobile minivan to a crawl, inching over a downed energy line laying throughout the highway.

A couple of minutes earlier, she zipped previous within the different route, almost entangling the van’s rear wheels, probably ripping off the rear axle. She did not wish to make the identical mistake twice: Hurricane Ian’s destruction is inescapable right here and getting the van mounted can be unattainable as a result of the mainland bridge was washed out.

“You possibly can’t assist an act of God,” mentioned Wright, 57.

Wright rode out Ian’s wrath in her townhome in Bokeelia, on the slim island’s north finish. Her dwelling suffered little or no harm, partially due to a neighbor’s tree that really feel down early and guarded her home windows from flying particles.

Now, 5 days after the storm, Wright helps those that want it, delivering water and provides to pals, checking on broken homes, stopping to speak to a stranger who must report a water leak. She indulged a USA TODAY journalist with a tour. In spite of everything, she mentioned, it isn’t like she has to get to work.

Christine Wright looks back as she drives around Pine Island, Florida, on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, following Hurricane Ian.

She identified the place a person with a tractor cleared neighbors’ yards and moved a broken Jeep to security. The place World Central Kitchen is distributing free sizzling meals. The place volunteers are offering web service powered by a rumbling semi-truck and Elon Musk’s Starlink.

“It’s all concerning the positivity. When you lose that, you lose your confidence,” she mentioned. “And then you definitely’re ineffective.”

Ian slammed into Pine Island with 150-mph winds, snapping phone poles and bushes, ripping roofs from houses, and tumbling cell houses and RVs. About 9,000 folks stay on Pine Island and the encompassing areas yr spherical, nevertheless it swells dramatically as northern snowbirds take in the solar from the waterside bars and eating places.

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St. James Metropolis on the southern tip seems to have been hit the toughest, whereas Bokeelia on the north finish suffered much less. However the destruction is in all places, and it breaks Wright’s coronary heart to see it.

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