By Tom Tracy - Florida Catholic

Photography: TOM TRACY | FC

FORT MYERS | Father Patrick O'Connor, pastor of Jesús Obrero (Jesus the Worker) Parish northwest of downtown Fort Myers, orchestrated a familiar operation Oct. 4 as he shuffled about his parish hall stacked high with clothing. 

An efficient food and water distribution line was in full swing as several thousand members of the mostly farmworker and Hispanic community came here on what was the busiest day of emergency supply distribution since Ian landed, according to Father O’Connor, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales. 

Volunteers from a Spanish language radio station in West Palm Beach had just finished unloading a delivery of donated supplies when Father O’Connor came over to offer hugs and a blessing, along with the obligatory group photo with the radio station staff. 

“They put out the word for us and brought in five trucks for us full of water, food and clothes and baby items, diapers and feminine products and all sorts of things that people need right now — especially in East Fort Myers that got hit so hard,” Father O’Connor said of the radio station delivery. 

The same priest and the same parish food pantry had carried out the same function following 2017’s Hurricane Irma. They were doing so again following the even more devastating Category 4 Hurricane Ian, which swept through Southwest Florida Sept. 28, 2022.

“This is a very poor community in this part of Fort Myers, and they can’t really get out of here like other people can — so they are kind of stuck,” the priest said. 

The death total in Lee County alone, which includes the city of Fort Myers, now stands at  55 persons, out of 105  in Florida. 

Those numbers are expected to rise as the cause of death is still pending on many others who may have drowned due to the catastrophic storm surge that hit the coastal areas. .

Father O’Connor said his immigrant community, composed mostly of Mexican and Central American laborers, is most in need of food and water right now, as the supply chain situation hasn’t been great. 

The City of Fort Myers reportedly does have water but has cautioned that it remains contaminated and unsafe to consume without boiling.. He noted that people in this community don’t have the luxury of driving off to other communities to buy supplies or wait for a modicum of normalcy to return.. 

“Part of the county does not even have water to the homes yet; days have passed without water in some of the homes,” the priest said.

Sister Maria Isabela Jaimes, of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Mary from Bucaramanga, Colombia, who was helping at Jesus the Worker Church, said she had never experienced a hurricane until Irma.

“Thanks be to God I’m alive, but it’s because I was able to evacuate before the storm,” the nun said in Spanish. “But I do feel very close to how my brothers and sisters have suffered because of this hurricane, and I have realized the greatness of God but also the respect for the power of nature.”

Sister Maria Isabela said the community is in relatively good spirits one week later as they are moving into recovery mode. “I see the people accepting God's will; they are at peace and calm now. They are coming for (donated) goods but what they really need is solidarity and interior peace, and community.”

At the nearby Elizabeth Kay Galeana Catholic Charities Center in Fort Myers, Alex Olivares, regional director for the agency  in the Diocese of Venice, helped with a drive-up water and emergency supplies distribution. Nearby tree removal crews and power companies were busy with clean-up. 

“This storm hit us really hard; some people were expecting it but most people were not so everybody is struggling. A lot of folks still have no water and no power,” Olivares said.

He said he thought Hurricane Ian would be less severe than Hurricane Irma, but it seems to have been much worse for this Latino and African-American community known locally as Dunbar.

One locally based Catholic Charities employee here lost his entire home due to flooding, Olivares said. 

“The damage has been catastrophic for some areas; there are parts of Fort Myers that have been really smashed,” he said.

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said repairs to the Pine Island bridge should be completed by the end of the week so that  debris removal and utility crews can move towards restoring power. Pine island is one of the barrier islands hardest hit by Hurricane Ian, along with Sanibel, which is expected to remain largely inaccessible after Ian destroyed the causeway that led to it.

Fort Myers Beach also was severely damaged by Ian and has been described by Gov. DeSantis as a complete disaster zone. Many communities from Naples north to Sarasota and beyond are still waiting for power to be restored.

The state’s Department of Emergency Management also deployed some 11 fueling depot stations statewide, and a mobile fuel truck was sent  to the hard-hit interior city of Arcadia to support residents without access to fuel. The governor also announced the opening of the first Disaster Recovery Center for Floridians impacted by Hurricane Ian at the Lakes Regional Library in Fort Myers.

Father O’Connor urged that water and food supplies be directed to the rural and farmworker communities such as his.

“These are very hard-working people; they work in restaurants, construction, landscaping; they are cooks, they are chefs, road crews, they do all the heavy labor. Farmworkers – they are the backbone of the community and they are ones who will be cleaning up everything after this and will be a fundamental and important part of rebuilding all the community,” Father O’Connor said. “Right now they are in crisis and need so much help.”

YOU CAN HELP

• Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, Inc., is seeking your support to provide essential resources and immediate relief to Florida’s southwest coast after Hurricane Ian.
• The agency is now accepting financial donations through www.ccadm.org. One hundred percent of donations will be used for Hurricane Ian relief efforts. Financial donations are preferred.
• Groups that want to take a collection of goods and transport them over to the west coast should first contact Catholic Charities CEO Peter Routsis-Arroyo at [email protected].