TAMPA, Fla. — On a sweltering hot morning this August, Lisa Gresh returned to the Fort Myers Beach tree that she believes saved her life two years ago.  

“This is the tree I hung onto,” Gresh said. “I ought to give it a hug and tell it how much I love it.”

What You Need To Know

  • Lisa Gresh and her father, Jim, stayed on Fort Myers Beach during Hurricane Ian  

  • She wound up clinging to a tree, holding on tightly to survive the storm's whipping winds  

  • Jim wound up buried under hurricane debris and rubble, ultimately saved by Good Samaritans who found him

  • Fort Myers Beach is still in the process of recovery from the storm 

In September, 2022, Gresh lived on Fort Myers Beach along with her 89-year-old father Jim. Their house sat just inland on the other side of beachside hotels.

Gresh says when Hurricane Ian hit the island, she and her dad did something she now regrets: They stayed.

“The house broke apart. I was treading water with my dad on a closet door. I tried to get him on the roof. We were riding waves throughout the storm,” Gresh recalled. “Others said it was a 15-foot (storm) surge. I beg to differ. I was in it. It went up above my neighbor’s house.”

Gresh said they rode the waves until her dad got hit by a board. She thought he was dead.

“There was a board that hit him that I had to pull out. After that, he faded out and he wouldn’t respond,” Gresh recalled.

She left him at the house in search of help, hoping merely to preserve his body. But the storm intensified, and Gresh had no choice but to grab onto a tree and cling to it for safety.

“I gripped that thing so tight, the winds still flapped around me,” Gresh told Spectrum Bay News 9. “Sand felt like pellets, sprayed like an ambush with the wind whipping against me.”

After Gresh spent hours on the tree, doing things she called “humanly impossible,” the storm subsided. Gresh thought her dad had been killed. She was wrong.

Instead, Jim wound up buried beneath rubble and debris at a nearby restaurant called The Whale. Good Samaritans found him and lifted him to safety.

“If you wouldn’t seen what I’ve seen, you would understand why you’d thought he passed away,” Gresh said.

But both had survived, though neither was in good shape. Gresh said her kidneys were starting to shut down and doctors considered her a stroke risk. She credits doctors at HealthPark Medical Center in Fort Myers for saving her life.

As for her dad, he moved to Tampa Bay while crews worked to rebuild Fort Myers Beach. Unfortunately, he got COVID. Jim didn’t make it.

“I said, ‘Dad, I’m sorry this happened to you. We fought a hurricane and I couldn’t save you from the aftermath,’” Gresh remembers telling him on his deathbed. “And he said to me, ‘I’m 89 years old. Don’t cry for me. Go sing karaoke, have a Miller Lite and thank you for 10 wonderful years of island life.’”

The place where Lisa and Jim’s house sat is now a flat plot of land. Crews are rebuilding at The Whale restaurant nearby. And Gresh’s life-saving tree still stands.

She struggles with her mobility and other damage to her body from the storm. But she’s still here, and she believes it’s because of that tree that she is.