CAPITAL REGION, N.Y. (NEWS10) - As Hurricane Ian, now a tropical storm at the time of writing, continues dump rain over parts of Florida, people who waited out the storm are beginning to assess the damage the storm left behind. Amongst those impacted are some with ties to the Capital Region and Upstate.
Videos and images of Ian's wrath over southwest Florida Wednesday hit home to many of us across New York with loved ones in the path of the powerful storm.
"The wind was very, very, very, very bad," said Lynn Carney, who lives in the Mohawk Valley but is staying in Cape Coral.
Carney and her family are staying in their Florida home, which was outside the mandatory evacuation zone. Those heavy winds, as high as 140 miles per hour in some areas of the Lee County community, caused damage to their lanai.
"The front door blew open and blew off, and that was just banging against the house the whole night. The windows blew in, which then caused the wind to come into, we have slider doors on the back end of the house, so they would like bow out," she explained.
Thankfully, their neighborhood didn't see the worst of Ian's wrath, especially compared to nearby Fort Myers and Sanibel, areas that saw devastating storm surge.
Another local from the Capital Region sent News10 photos from their vacation in Key West, showing flooding and other damage left from the storm.
But as Floridians begin cleaning up in the aftermath of the storm, there is plenty of help on the way from across the country, including the Capital Region.
A water restoration company based in Mechanicville is sending a team south to help those who suffered significant water damage from the storm.
The American Red Cross also has hundreds of volunteers on the ground, with nine of them from our local Eastern New York Region. More local volunteers are expected to be deployed to the southeast for Ian recovery in the future.
