Hurricane Ian — One Year Later: Forecast of a lifetime
Local meteorologists reflect on Ian’s legacy
For many of us in Southwest Florida, TV meteorologists were the literal faces and familiar voices as hundreds of thousands of residents rode out Hurricane Ian.
As we mark the one year anniversary of Ian, a storm that changed and continues to change the lives of so many, we revisit some of the forecasters whose professional and personal lives also were changed that fateful week.
Allyson Rae, NBC2: Unafraid to be emotional
The week of Hurricane Ian was the worst week of NBC2 chief meteorologist Allyson Rae’s professional life.
“I felt pretty prepared. I looked at my house and did some things to button it up and went to work,” she said.
Once at work, Rae helped talk Southwest Florida through the relentless pummeling of Ian as the storm tore up her own home and the community she calls home.
“I could not keep my emotions out of it,” Rae said of her broadcasts. “I was sad, mad, frustrated, shocked, tired. Once it hit and I realized what it did to my town, I was emotional. I wasn’t afraid to show that because I am human.”
For a meteorologist, the overtime starts before the storm comes onshore, as they are broadcasting the latest forecast and relaying as much information as needed to prepare their viewers. So the importance of being prepared is critical as she knows she will be working extra hard.
As a meteorologist, Rae practices what she preaches – prepare – collect those items she likes and knows she will need before the start of hurricane season, so she is not part of the frenzy of everyone trying to stock up on supplies.
“If you just stay prepared the whole time, then when it comes, you are not freaking out,” she said. “I try to keep stocked.”
There was a whole week leading up to the storm in getting prepared and then four days after the storm of not being able to move around the area.
The 12-to 16-hours work days continued, while she balanced work and trying to get her house cleaned out at the same time.
“I had 3 feet of water in my home. I had to balance that. It never really stopped. The next month was hard for me. I couldn’t stay at my house. I was bouncing between friends’ houses,” Rae said.
For seven to eight months following the storm, her schedule consisted of going to the gym, then to her home, which sometimes included showering before work at home, or at a friend’s house before heading into work.
“The first week was the hardest. I didn’t have a plan. It was a lot of hard labor getting drywall out of my house. I was not alone in that. All my other neighbors along the Caloosahatchee were doing the same thing,” Rae said.
There was definitely mental preparedness before broadcasting information about Hurricane Ian.
“You just have to tell the facts and what you know and the worst-case scenario, or the best-case scenario. It’s still a forecast at that point. You see it on satellites. You have to be calm and measured. (You have to say) hey, this is a real scenario, and be completely straight,” Rae said. “I wish I was wrong with Ian, but I knew I wasn’t going to be.”
With the knowledge of knowing people want as much information as possible, she went into overdrive without scaring people.
“I see a need for more questions and more information. I will never not share information. You have to keep a measured approach,” she said. “Once you have a really good grasp, you have to preach.”
She said it is important that people get real information with the latest updates, which does not include social media, as past posts may already be hours old.
Her biggest fear going into this season is individuals comparing one hurricane with another.
“The storm can be different. It is my job to tell you how it is different. You can’t prepare less because you think it will be less,” Rae said.
The unfortunate aspect of this storm is the amount of people it impacted, residents that are still repairing their homes before the 2023 hurricane season begins.
“People have this sense to keep an eye on your house. You can’t save your house. Be responsible for yourself. That is our goal next time the storm hits. We can’t lose people like we did with Ian. It was way too many. One person is way too many,” she said. “There is a lot of anxiety this year. We are all spending a ton of money, time and effort putting our homes back together. Just remember we are emotional, sensitive and to take deep breaths. We live in Florida. We are going to get hit with another storm. Don’t let your guard down.”
Rae believes people should really look at their physical ability, to take a look at themselves and ask such questions as do I know how to swim through turbulent water, can I climb and can I move quickly with speed and purpose. She said first responders cannot get to you right away and it is imperative you put yourself in a safe position before a storm.
“It’s never too late to get to a safer spot. You don’t have to go to the other side of the state. You can just drive east and hang out at a shelter, or go to an area that does not flood.
Just find a friend, family member, shelter, budding business that will take you in for the day,” Rae said.
Trent Aric, Fox4: Like talking to family
Meteorologist Trent Aric said preparedness is a bit tricky for meteorologist as they have to gear up well in advance. For Aric, part of that preparation is putting up hurricane shutters ahead of time, a bit difficult as he does not want to put neighbors into panic.
“Once the season ramps up the last thing I want to be doing is run out,” and get supplies, Aric said.
The meteorologist has been covering tropical weather in South Florida for 20 years. Hurricane Ian was tough, as it was obviously a big storm.
“It was one of those worst-case scenarios for Southwest Florida,” he said.
To prepare for that possible realization, Aric began putting shutters up well in advance, a Saturday after his child’s birthday party.
“The house was shuttered up and ready for Sunday morning knowing the storm was coming later that week. We started our coverage over the weekend,” he said.
“I have a love-hate relationship with tropical weather,” he said, adding that it’s a muscle you never want to flex, reporting on the punch Hurricane Ian was going to have on Southwest Florida. “I have covered plenty of storms that have hit elsewhere. Our time was up. It was difficult knowing in advance.”
He knew those hours leading up to landfall, Southwest Florida was never going to be the same, look the same. That people were going to lose everything and have stories to tell for years to come.
With the coverage beginning on Sept. 22 and 23, as the storm moved closer to Cuba and took a hard left, Aric said it was all hands on deck at the station, with them being on call 24 hours a day. On that Sunday the extended coverage ramped up.
“We were on all day nonstop even post storm with help from crews from across the country in Southwest Florida, before, during and the aftermath. The benefits of having a strong corporate company,” he said.
He remembers a moment when the new advisory came from the Hurricane Center, it being a game changer as the storm came up on Cuba, interacting with land and taking a tug to the right, moving closer to the coastline. That moment Aric looked to his colleague and asked if she was ready for this.
“Are you ready to tell people they are going to lose everything tomorrow,” he said. “You tear up and get emotional. I talk to our viewers like I am talking to family with care and love.”
There’s a point when he had to get through the science and meteorology aspect and hold people’s hands through the coverage. When the worse of the storm was hitting, shutters were banging, new cracking, creaking and howling sounds coming from everywhere. Aric was trying to tell people that they are not alone, they were going to make it and get through it okay.
A couple days after Hurricane Ian made landfall, Aric did not know what his house looked like as they stayed hunkered down in the studio, napping when they could while not on air.
Although his home was in the eyewall for six hours, it did OK with the house still standing and the roof intact.
“What was interesting, on two sides of the house hurricane shutters were ripped off. The wind was strong enough on the southeast corner of the house it ripped the panels off,” Aric said.
Initially, the hurricane shutter company, the first time he called said to call back in 2024, as they were booked solid. Since that initial conversation they called back and made an appointment.
With such a horrific natural disaster behind us, Hurricane Ian exposed some weaknesses, such as people’s understanding of storm surge and the need to evacuate.
“You can say what storm surge is. Talk about it. There is going to be this swell of water. People have a hard time visualizing that. One thing that is beneficial going through a storm, we have pictures, video and real life experiences that people can see and relate to,” Aric said, adding that, heaven forbid, Southwest Florida ever has to go through another storm that produces that kind of storm surge again.
He also hopes that residents do not compare one hurricane to another because they are all different, posing their own threats and risks.
With hurricane season upon us once again, the question is “How do I prepare this year with so much damage still being fixed from Hurricane Ian?”
“You have to look at your hurricane plan differently. You have to worry about vulnerabilities,” Aric said.
One of those vulnerabilities might be the safety of your once-stable home. He said now individuals have to look at their house and say, “Will it keep my family safe?” If the answer is no, they must evacuate to a friend, or family member’s house.
The key to evacuation is going tens of miles away from the storm surge and water, not hundreds of miles away. A family or friend who is enough inland with a concrete block house would be safe, Aric said.
“I never want a storm to hit anywhere. Be as prepared as possible and stay safe,” he said. “I would like to see the death toll at zero. A lot of lost life was preventable because they didn’t want to walk away from their home.”
John Patrick, ABC7: Like nothing seen before
For Chief Meteorologist John Patrick the biggest challenge of Hurricane Ian was the forecast track, as the initial models had trended the storm to the west, out into the Gulf of Mexico and heading towards Tampa.
“I noticed on Saturday night before Ian hit that our model started trending to bring the storm here to Southwest Florida. With each run it would wobble a couple of miles north or south,” he said.
One of the models showed Hurricane Ian going towards the Caloosahatchee and Imperial River, which would bring it to Southwest Florida, not Tampa.
“After I saw three runs of our model do that, I was confident going on television Sunday night (to share that the hurricane) is likely going to come here. I explained on television this model is not like the other ones,” Patrick said.
Another factor that made him realize “this is going to be awful” was a forecast model that broke down how much water above ground would be seen.
“It takes in storm surge of 15 feet and figures it in elevation. That is how much water is going to be on the ground. Obviously with the Beach there is no elevation. It’s right at sea level,” Patrick said. “The last category on the legend was 9 feet plus, which was a pinkish color. We were getting this color of purple, not on the legend.”
The model showed 3 feet increments as far as the amount of inundation. With purple, it was 12 feet or higher showing right over Fort Myers Beach past Estero Bay with storm surge possible to US 41.
“I have been here since 2005. It was nothing like I had ever seen forecast before. Can this really happen? U.S. 41 is pretty far away from the Beach,” he said, adding that he had never seen boats on U.S. 41 before. “It was a crazy storm. The perfect spot for the worst storm surge for Lee County.”
Now almost a year later, looking back at Sept. 28, the days leading up to the hurricane, as well as after is a blur.
“I had not been on the air while the storm was going through until Irma,” Patrick said of becoming a chief meteorologist in 2012. “Irma was the first hurricane that came through the viewing area when I moved from morning to night. That was a lot of pressure.”
He has a home in Lehigh Acres. His neighborhood was in the eye of Hurricane Irma for 57 minutes with constant rain and wind when the storm made landfall in Lee County on Sept. 10, 2017.
Hurricane Ian was a beast of a storm that did not affect Lehigh Acres much with only power flickering, rather than going out. Patrick believes with the rebuilding of power poles after Irma, when Hurricane Ian hit five years later, they held their own.
“This time around the inland areas that got it hard from Irma, got spared the worst from Ian,” he said.
With Hurricane Ian, Patrick said he tried to numb himself while doing broadcasts.
“I try not to think about the outside world,” he said, something he learned from Hurricane Irma.
Patrick said while on air, in the back of his head, he was thinking about friends, who had just had their son, as the eyewall went over their house.
“I would get choked up on air. Are they okay? Is the baby okay? When Ian came through I was mentally prepared. Look at the towns as places on the map, not places you have friends. Street names as places you drive your car, not places where your friends are,” he said. “After the fact when I saw what had happened, then we were all like ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this even happened.'”
As with every storm, lessons are learned. After Ian, Patrick believes more people will evacuate.
“Here, we need more time to evacuate than anywhere else in the state because our arteries out are limited,” he said.
Evolving technology will also play a hand in this year’s hurricane season. Patrick said at the beginning of May new satellites were launched into space to scan tropical systems, which will provide a complete scan every hour. He said that will provide six times the amount of data to be put into forecast models.