Evacuation orders, safety, and Florida’s hurricane culture

Christina Morris is an island person. She’s lived in Florida since 1993, and in a two-story house on the south end of Pine Island – off the coast of Fort Myers – for the past 2 1/2 years.

And island people know their hurricanes, she says. She was on Fort Myers beach during Hurricane Charley, a Category 4 storm 18 years ago, and she saw “Wizard of Oz stuff.” At one point, a manatee washed ashore. People ran to the beach, carried it on a piece of driftwood like a stretcher, and brought it back to the ocean. 

So ahead of Hurricane Ian, with her mother visiting, with her six rescue animals, and with a sturdy two-story house, Ms. Morris decided to stay. Then the storm hit.

Ms. Morris spent hours sheltering in the