Original subtitles

Mitch and I lived on Fort Myers Beach.

At that point, we had been together almost 30 years.

He's the kind of person you can't help but love.

I just knew he was the one.

Everyone loved Mitch, and with good reason.

Mitch is filming for his Facebook feed so he could

keep everyone updated what's going on.

Right now, in fact, it's Tropical Storm Ian

bearing down on the Caribbean.

The storm, though, could reach category four hurricane status

when it gets to the Gulf of Mexico, which is on Florida's

west coast.

So, let's now get to Florida's Gulf Coast, specifically Tampa.

That's where news meteorologist Scott Withers is tonight with more.

Lindsay, Rob, this storm got some big issues,

and it's becoming more certain as time goes.

Tampa's gonna get hit.

I'm Scott Withers. I'm a meteorologist.

And for the last decade and a half,

I've been covering every major natural disaster from

coast to coast in the United States.

At that point in time, the National Hurricane Center

said Hurricane Ian was likely gonna go into the Tampa area.

Here in the Tampa area, you can see behind me here,

residents have been out here all weekend long,

filling sandbags so they can protect their homes.

This city floods during a thunderstorm, so we have

a powerful hurricane coming through.

They're worried that the storm surge is gonna be backing up

into the neighborhood.

Hey, feel better?

When Ian came up,

and they said it was going to Tampa,

they said there may be flooding.

We figured a couple feet.

We figured we're not going to evacuate.

But then around noon on Tuesday,

24 hours before landfall, all of a sudden Hurricane Ian

rapidly intensifies, changes trajectory.

So now it wasn't Tampa, it was south of Tampa

and heading towards Fort Myers.

That entire region didn't prepare because they didn't

realize it was coming to them.

It's gonna be deadly.

The weather started changing, so now I'm starting to panic.

And then they said, "You have to go."

because it was coming to us.

And at that point, it was like, "Where we gonna go?

Scott, we can see the conditions getting worse.

What do we know there on the ground?

Yeah, I got to tell you, Rob, rapidly deteriorating

conditions here in Fort Myers Beach.

Just in the last few minutes, we're starting to see

significant wind gusts coming through, the heavy rains.

We are right on the verge of this being Category 5.

It's going to cause catastrophic damage in this

part of Florida, and we're also going to see

life-threatening flooding and storm surge.

One of my really good friends, Max, had been working on

a storm surge project, trying to capture the effects

of storm surge.

I wanted to capture a storm surge from start to finish,

so I built a series of what we call surge probes.

These are essentially a camera and a waterproof case attached

to a battery pack, and they can film the storm surge as it

comes in safely.

Hurricane Ian has rapidly intensified during the night.

And now the computer models are taking Hurricane Ian

further south.

And so, that's where we put the storm surge probe.

That's it.

We know it's about to be in for a wild ride.

My name is Annette Roszkowski.

Todd and I lived on Fort Myers Beach

in the orange house.

We were just with the dogs at home that morning.

But we didn't know that we were, like, on camera.

Todd's mom and my family just started texting me a lot,

like, beginning to panic. Like, "Get off the island.

Do you need to get off the island?"

I was like, "I'm just gonna stay.

"Why? Like, it's a storm surge.

"We're on the second floor.

You know, what's the worst that could happen?"

Everything that morning changed literally in minutes.

The governor said this was to prepare like

a tornado was coming for your house.

I'd like to amend that to say,

prepare as if a wall of tornadoes

are coming for your house.

The eyewall is the center of the storm.

That's where it's spinning the fastest.

Those winds are the most intense, especially on that

front end when it first makes landfall.

My name's Logan Parham. I'm a Florida native.

My buddy actually found a parking garage

in downtown Punta Gorda.

That ended up being closest to the landfall point.

It's just a great spot where it's like we can film but also

keep ourselves safe at the same time.

Jim Cantore's there, works with the Weather Channel.

He is the go-to guy when it comes to these

big-time hurricanes.

It's a joke down here in Florida.

If you see Jim Cantore in your neighborhood,

then you should leave.

In that first eyewall, we were experiencing winds well above

100 miles per hour.

Jim Cantore, you know, he's doing broadcast.

Right when you think you can't. get any higher winds than that,

it continues to get worse.

It's unbelievable.

We're all braced up against this concrete pillar, trying to

hide away from the gusts, the best that we can.

That was insane.

Things start to calm down a little bit.

The-- the sky gets a little brighter.

Then, once you finally get into that eye,

the sun sort of comes out a little bit.

You know, you can see patches of blue sky.

Jim Cantore had said that the back eyewall was gonna

be a lot stronger, and he went inside, so we did as well.

We were just huddled down in the car.

You can actually hear the concrete groaning.

It felt like the entire structure was going to collapse.

Is it ever gonna end?

2

When those back eyewall winds came through,

everything changes.

It looked like hell.

We feel the garage shaking back and forth.

What did I get myself into? Did I push my limits too far?

How are we ever gonna leave here?

Like, there's no way there's gonna be anything left.

But you're also thinking, "All those people that

stayed behind, how are they doing?"

If you are near a flood zone and you did not evacuate,

you need to prepare to move up to a second story

pretty quickly.

It is no longer safe here at Fort Myers Beach.

We are pulling inland because the tide is going to quickly

be up into the roads in just a matter of minutes.

You could see the depth of the water

and how quickly it was rising, and how quickly it was flowing.

Think about a clock.

The most dangerous part of a hurricane

is between 12 and 3.

That's where the strongest winds are.

That's where the most storm surge are, because it's bringing

everything up in the land.

That 12 to 3 is a wall of water,

and it's coming directly at Fort Myers Beach.

There was nothing,

nowhere to go.

So...

We just figured we'd ride it out.

But the hurricane was coming our way.

The water started coming in so fast.

It was just like a dam was let loose.

It was not stopping.

It was too late to evacuate at that point.

For lack of better terms, we're screwed.

I mean, this is it.

Oh, he's terrified.

I know he was, because he can't swim.

We knew we were in trouble.

And there's nothing either one of us can do.

I go, "Mitch, we got to go."

So, I-- I, like, slid out the door.

And the next thing I know is

that the roof was collapsed.

And I was calling for Mitch.

Nothing.

Mitch was gone.

At this point in time, we see Hurricane Ian

clocking 120, 130, 140-mile-per-hour sustained wind

as it moves inland.

But those outer bands are starting to create friction

with the land, slowing it down as it comes ashore.

And that means that the storm might actually last longer

and cause more damage.

As we're driving through Englewood, the storm starts

ramping up quickly. It's ramping up very fast.

This is, by far, one of the most intense hurricanes

that I've ever been a part of.

We're easily getting winds over 120 miles an hour.

There's mobile homes that are starting to get shredded apart.

Roofs are coming off. Debris is flying everywhere.

It's just a total whiteout.

It's terrifying not knowing if a piece of building is going to

come through your car.

All I could do is hold the steering wheel

as tight as I possibly can.

2 The storm is absolutely insane.

At this point, we're exhausted, and it's starting to get toward

the evening hours.

It's too dangerous to be out here.

So we make our way back to our hotel.

Our hotel has fared pretty well.

The structure is still intact...

...but it's leaking.

There's water pouring through every single room.

Yeah, that's not good.

We're kind of thinking that we've gone through the brunt of

what Hurricane Ian had to offer.

We couldn't have been more wrong.

I look over at Aaron and say, "We need to go film this."

I-- I've never seen anything like this.

It was just total chaos, and we couldn't help but think

to ourselves, "If it's this bad here, what's going on to

our south, with our storm surge probe and the folks of

Fort Myers Beach?"

The water started rushing into the kitchen

and the living room.

And we just saw the house next door to us

just disappear into the water,

gone.

Just floating past our house.

The house was, like, lifting and going to the side,

just moving back and forth.

My dogs are going frantic.

I'm going frantic, and I don't know if we're gonna make it.

That was when the wall fell.

Somehow, I came out through the window,

and I'm just yelling at Todd to get out.

He just gets pulled away from me,

and I lose focus of him.

Take a look right now at our current wave heights.

You can see near Fort Myers where we saw landfall just

after three o'clock this afternoon Eastern Time.

We are still dealing with six- to nine-foot waves.

That is, just, incredibly, life-threatening.

This storm surge surprised so many people.

It's moving so quickly,

and in all different directions.

And it's so powerful.

Once you're in it, you are in it.

There's nothing to stop it.

I'm Kaye DeHays.

We live on Fort Myers Beach.

Right on the water.

Yeah, right on the bay.

Our house was built in 1951.

And it has withstood every hurricane.

The water just

really started to rise fast.

I was upstairs.

I looked at the barstool, and they were moving.

And what that was, was the water pushing on

the floor, maybe nine feet up from the ground.

As the water came up, there was nothing we could do.

And then there was a 40,000-pound floating dock,

and it was floating toward our house.

It was gonna come and knock the house down.

Oh, it missed that boat.

2

It would have taken the house down.

There's no doubt about that.

I just thank God it didn't hit us.

But the worst part was the water on the side of my house.

And it was a bang, bang!

And then the waves just came crashing in.

I was scared then.

I was very scared then.

The house, it was destroyed.

I could feel things crashing on the floor, and you just didn't

know what it was.

And it was terrible.

When you have a storm like this so close to shore,

it's gonna push a lot of water on shore.

And that storm surge is one of the most deadly aspects

of a hurricane.

And it is extremely important that you don't underestimate it.

Me and my friends, when we heard it was a cat 5,

we were like, "OK, well, we should see if anyone

needs help.

The surge was coming in so fast,

and the current was very strong.

We see an older gentleman in the car,

and the car's starting to sink.

We were able to pry open the door.

The water's pooling up in there.

But we were able to get him out of the vehicle.

Come on, let's go.

He's, like, disoriented. He's confused.

That can be someone's grandpa. That can be someone's dad.

We kept telling him, like, you know,

"Everything's gonna be OK."

The water is getting deeper.

But we got him into our truck to dry him off a little bit.

And after that, we handed him off to a buddy who was able to

take care of him a little better.

When you see someone in need of help, you know, you have to

help them-- you have to.

I think the surge would have taken him.

But I was happy he was safe.

My name is Robert Donze.

Sea Trek's my boat.

I was videoing in the parking lot,

videoing the water coming around,

and it was swirling, it was creating a huge eddy, you know,

and it was just amazing me, like,

"Oh, my gosh, this water's coming in fast."

This is Hurricane Bay.

We came about a half mile inland from the coast

because it was too dangerous out there.

But now look, this is already up over the seawall here.

It's come up at least a foot and a half

in the last half hour.

We set up in a kind of a marina area to do a couple more hours

of live hits, and everything was fine.

This is the storm surge that we've been talking about,

and it is going to get significantly worse.

Once this comes into the parking lot,

we're gonna have to make a beeline out.

All of a sudden...

the water just started going across the road.

And I said, "We have to leave-- now."

I had the motors fired up, you know.

I was running both diesel engines at 1,000 RPMs.

I was-- we were gonna make a run for it, maybe.

All of a sudden, somebody yelled out,

"Oh, my gosh, there's people in that car."

It was terrifying.

We were trapped in this car.

It just came in so quickly.

In minutes, we were surrounded by water.

And we're not gonna be able to open the doors.

Where do we go? Where do we go?

And I used the last few bars on my phone

to call my husband and say goodbye.

Matt was a bait guy down there,

and he provided all the bait for the fishermen.

It was extremely dangerous for Matt to be out in that water.

I was so worried.

We would have drowned if Matt and the entire crew

of the Sea Trek had not seen us.

- Whoo-hoo! - Yeah!

Within minutes, our large SUV was fully underwater.

That's how quickly a surge can come in.

And it can go in seconds, from nothing to death.

But we still aren't safe.

2 It's not just Fort Myers Beach getting hammered.

Hurricane Ian caused problems along the East Coast.

This was moving faster than the National Hurricane Center

has really predicted.

To northeastern Florida, and it has just been

a walloping situation near Daytona Beach, where we also

saw about 12 to 18 inches.

And so this is, just incredible, especially in

such a short period of time.

The wind and the rain was so intense.

2 For hours, we were thrashing around.

We didn't know if we were out at sea.

We didn't know if we were in a different town.

The terror and the horror that we were living through,

minute by minute, but finally we wound up in the trees.

When we stopped, I could feel us, like, nestle in there.

And for me to be secured again on the boat, that was like,

I think I even said, "Thank you, Jesus," or something

like that, because that was such a good feeling when it stopped.

It was sun up, like 7, 8 in the morning.

There was nothing left.

All the little buildings were gone.

And I remember, we walked down the road,

and that's when that's when we saw our SUV.

And that's when the reality of how lucky we really were,

because we would have been inside that thing,

underneath that boat.

We were just extremely, extremely lucky to survive.

We should not have survived.

Another co-worker showed up looking for us, and he ran over

and just hugged us. He's like, "You're alive."

And he had a satellite phone.

I quickly called my husband, and said, "We're alive.

I'm OK."

And that was the first time that he knew I was alive.

I had a phone call.

They found him.

Right down the block. Right by the car.

I would give anything in my life to have Mitch back.

Anything.

And now I'm just trying to get my life together.

It's a-- it's struggle

because I'm alone, but I have no choice.

You either die or you go on.

I'm going on...

me and Lulu.

Somehow, I grabbed onto this tree.

I passed out in the tree for roughly four hours.

We almost lost our lives, you know?

Yeah.

I think that was the hardest part,

was that we almost lost our lives.

And what we did to our families...

...because they were really worried.

Yeah.

As we are approaching Fort Myers Beach,

the car goes silent and we just have no words.

I go back into the raw footage and I start scrubbing through

the entirety of it.

My stomach drops at this point. My heart sinks.

Max and Aaron posted the video of the house,

and people started to see like around town that knew me.

We wake up to a comment. "They are alive.

They're at the hospital and going to be released later that day."

This is Jackson, and that's Roxy.

They bring out two full-sized pit bulls that Annette

held in a tree for several hours.

It's a huge moment of relief that, in all this tragedy,

all this death and destruction, that there was a miraculous

survival story and we somehow captured it.

I feel, like, very, very happy to be alive.