Much of the Gulf Coast waited as Hurricane Ian changed track throughout the week before making landfall in southwest Florida in the Fort Myers and Naples area Wednesday.

What You Need To Know

  • Hurricane Ian created a lot of damage across the state
  • Many families woke up Thursday to assess the storm's impact on their homes

  • A local Tampa family is struggling with how to fix the damage caused by Ian

While those places faced some of the harshest damage from Ian, counties in the Bay Area dealt with high winds, rain, power outages, and damage caused by fallen branches and trees. 

King Davenport said cleaning up debris that now covers his sister and mother's back yard has been an all morning ordeal. 

“I got my friend to drive me over here in his truck in case there was flooding, and we just ran over here as fast as we could to help the situation," he said. 

The situation they encountered was a massive fallen tree and debris that destroyed the back patio and pool connected to the family home. 

“It was really just a horrifying sound to hear, but we just buckled down stayed inside," King Davenport's sister Marissa Davenport said. "It was crazy to come outside at 6 a.m. and see all this. I mean the wind was still blowing and all you could do was look at it."

She said the home itself has been in their family since their mother was born in the 1940s.

Just this September, the family had renovated the entire back part of the property only to have Ian destroy the work they'd done. Now they say they have no idea how long it could take to repair it all. 

“To refill the whole pool, just coming out of pandemic, and taking care of my mom while we are working and to come out and see all of this, like all of it's gone, are you kidding?" Marissa Davenport said. 

And while the destruction is shocking for the Davenports, they said they take comfort in the fact that their family is safe.

“We are grateful it didn't hit the whole of Tampa," Marissa Davenport said, "We are blessed we didn't get hit like Fort Myers, they got it real bad, so in a way we do still feel blessed.” 

The Davenport family and their neighbors are banding together to not just clean up their home and other homes in the neighborhood, but also to repair the damage to the home. They have set up a GoFundMe account to help pay for the repairs. 

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