Kimberly Leonard/Insider
FORT MYERS, Florida — Sunshine Mobile Village was the type of close-knit community where people frequently checked in on each other.
And according to residents, it was a delightful place to live. There's a golf course behind the neighborhood, outlet shops nearby, and Fort Myers Beach just miles away.
"Everybody knows everybody and worries about everybody," resident Carol Varney, who'd moved into the 55-and-up community only a year ago, told Insider.
Then Hurricane Ian hit, with 155 mph winds shredding homes, toppling massive trees by their roots, and pouring a 10-foot surge of water into the community. It caked the inside of homes in mud, and a slight smell of sewage lingered in the air on Friday.
The storm is still going — it flooded central Florida and is now headed toward South Carolina. Much of Southwest Florida was affected including Naples and Cape Coral. Friday afternoon, water in many neighborhoods was too tainted to drink, and stores were trying to operate without power. Sunshine Village appeared to be one of the hardest-hit communities in the region.
Few people were here Friday, but those who were checked in on each other, pulling over to the side of the road to make sure that everyone had a place to go or a ride if they needed it.
Many were relieved they and their loved ones were alive. The president of Sunset Village, Vickie Kolodzik, told Insider that her husband had almost drowned in the storm. He had stayed behind to help others, she said, and to take care of her tropical birds — they weren't sure anyone would want to take them.
Wednesday night, Kolodzik said, the water rose around her husband and he held onto a couch as his head bobbed up against the ceiling. Kolodzik herself was at a home situated five feet off the ground – but even then, still had some flooding – and a fire broke out. She couldn't reach her husband.
"I thought he was dead," she said.
But after several hours, the water began to recede, and he got out, she said. He had put the birds on a mattress that floated as the water rose, and all survived.
Ray Remillard, 62, told Insider that his Sunset Village home had been "destroyed," describing the scene as a "total loss." There are nearly 190 homes in the neighborhood, and almost all of them may be ruined.
The community had come together ahead of the storm. Remillard picked up Varney and other residents just in time and took them to his company's condo near the airport.
On Friday, Varney tried to go into her home to take a few clothes with her, but she slipped in the mud and her leg started bleeding.
Thankfully, she said, volunteers from Miami had just arrived on the scene and bandaged up her leg. They handed out water bottles to people who'd dropped by to check out their homes, people who hoped they salvage a few things or have a change of clothes.
About 30% to 40% of residents who live in Sunshine Village live here full time, while the others are snowbirds who were far away from the storm when it happened, Remillard said.
For now, he said, residents would wait elsewhere until the water drained out. Some neighbors said it had been several feet higher on Thursday, but now at least residents could drive down the main road and get closer to their homes. On Friday, the water was about knee-high in many areas of the neighborhood.
Remillard saw Varney's leg was injured, and went into her house to gather some things for her — managing to salvage a laptop — and to open her windows.
The community hasn't been able to check the news because they've been without power, which means no TV and no Internet. They didn't hear that Florida's death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian has climbed to at least 21, according to state authorities.
Varney said she had recently told a friend over the phone that living her life in Fort Myers was the happiest she'd ever been. Even now, she said, she wouldn't change a thing and was looking forward to setting up a new home and purchasing new furniture. Before this, she'd been living in a farmhouse in Vermont.
"It's very sad," she said. "But we are alive. I'm ready to do it again."
