Posted Sep 29, 2022, 2:58 AM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Dec 2018
Posts: 1,052
|
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yuri
|
Most of the growth was probably the memory of Hurricane Donna (1960) fading away, and people forgetting what a SW FL hurricane can really do. And that was back when most Florida houses were still on stilts.
Everglades City used to be the county seat and most developed town in Collier County, until it was relocated to Naples after the city was obliterated by Donna.
Quote:
Stories of survival and sorrow abound, including, “George Brainard, a beach merchant, [who] went to his store during the calm period as the eye of Donna passed through. He didn’t leave for safety in time. The eye passed on. The wind roared in on him and the Gulf seas broke all barriers. The body of George Brainard was found more than a mile from his home in the mangroves.” More stories of Donna’s damage were reported in local newspapers, and it was said that, “the Gulf sprinted across the marshlands, invaded his store and carried away three boats from [a] showroom. They still haven’t been found.” Byron Liles of Bonita Springs watched a storm surge of about 10 to 15 feet come across Hickory Boulevard. He said he watched as, “some homes were carried off their block bottoms, [and] swept into the mangroves.”
A woman said, “three feet of water went through my house, [and] wedged between the beds in one of my rooms was a huge tropical plant. I haven’t the slightest idea of how it got into my home.” An elderly couple’s trailer was found 150 yards away, across a bay on its back. The tidal water went in one window and out the other. “Enormous damage was found to be done in trees uprooted, blown down, many times across portions of buildings. There was no loss of life, and though streets are heavily cumbered with all kinds of litter there were very few instances of complete demolition of structures. It may be weeks before the debris is cleared away.”
|
https://www.weather.gov/media/tbw/pa...ricane1960.pdf
|