Sep 30, 2022 6 min read

Anthony Castellone was living in Fort Lauderdale in August 1992 when Hurricane Andrew cut like a buzz saw through southern Florida. He especially remembers the howling wind that sounded like a freight train and the utter destruction that hurricane left in its wake.

The former Peters Township resident, who moved to Lee County two years ago, described many of the same experiences when Hurricane Ian slammed into the Florida Gulf Coast on Wednesday just 35 miles north of where he lives. The only difference, he said during a phone interview Thursday afternoon, was that Ian lasted longer as it moved at a snail’s pace while pummeling populated areas along the coast.

“I just saw pictures of Fort Myers Beach and the pier … it’s destroyed. Fort Myers is like destroyed,” said Castellone, who lives about 15 miles away in Estero, Fla. “It’s a different storm (than Hurricane Andrew). This was all day. Andrew sliced Homestead off the map and kept on going.”

Castellone lived in Peters Township for about two decades and moved to Florida in October 2020 for work as a civil engineer. His wife, Rosanna, and their daughter, Alessia, still live in Peters Township, and he plans to return to Washington County in a couple of weeks to visit them.

While the destruction just to the north of his house in Estero is difficult for him to put into words, his town in southern Lee County was relatively spared.

“It was really crazy yesterday. Thank God, I just missed it,” he said. “Lee County is destroyed, but I’m in southern Lee County and – knock on wood – we made it through OK.”

He remained at home rather than evacuate because the storm initially appeared as though it would make landfall much farther north near Tampa Bay. But it soon took a hard right turn after mowing through Cuba and kept creeping closer to the Fort Myers area.

“I wasn’t really too nervous because they kept saying it was going to Tampa. Then Sarasota. Then Fort Myers,” Castellone said, trailing off.

His company’s office is in Cape Coral, which was hard hit by the storm, so he’s unsure what he’ll find when he ventures from his home. While the death toll from Hurricane Ian is unclear at this time, the level of damage from the storm appears to rival Andrew’s destruction three decades earlier.

“This was destructive. This thing was historic,” Castellone said. “Lot more death and devastation (with Andrew), but this is going to be right up there. I just pray for all the people who lost their places or are without power now.”

While Castellone had been through this before, a storm like Hurricane Ian was a first for Brandi Liptock. As the hurricane made landfall Wednesday, Liptock was working in a Sarasota hospital operating room 40 miles away from the eye wall saving a life.

A patient had arrived at Sarasota Memorial Hospital about an hour before ambulance crews in the area began suspending transports due to the storm, so the person was brought in just in time for cardiovascular surgery.

Liptock, who is a 2012 graduate of Laurel Highlands High School in Uniontown, moved to Sarasota two years ago and works as a clinical perfusionist at the hospital, where she runs the heart bypass pump during surgeries. With the hurricane pounding the coast, Liptock and the operating team somehow were able to keep their focus on the patient and not the howling winds just outside the hospital doors.

“It was touching down on land and we’re in the operating room. I was able to (put the hurricane out of my mind) for the patient. The patient was critically ill,” Liptock said, while adding that she thought of contingency plans if the hospital lost electricity that could affect the bypass machine. “Oh, no, what if we lose power? Where’s my backup equipment?”

But the surgery was successful and the patient survived.

“It went well,” Liptock said. “We saved a life.”

Liptock, who spoke by telephone Thursday afternoon, was mostly sheltered from the storm as she spent 42 straight hours inside the hospital while it was locked down from 7 p.m. Tuesday until she left at 1 p.m. Thursday. She and the staff became increasingly nervous as the hurricane’s projected path took it closer and closer to Sarasota.

“Once we saw the cold front was pushing the hurricane south, we were like, ‘Oh, no!’ They were predicting when we were locking down that the eye could go to Sarasota. Some people down here weren’t really nervous. But being from up north, I didn’t really know what to expect.”

One of those places that was in the bulls-eye of the storm was Cape Coral just across the bay from Fort Myers. Derrek Thompson, a Canonsburg native who now lives in Cape Coral, was without power and had limited phone service, according to his sister, April Giles.

She said her brother reached out to her during a brief phone call Thursday afternoon to let her know he was fine. Thompson told Giles his condo was flooded, the building’s exterior resembled a lake and there was an estimated $100,000 in damage. Thompson told Giles he had thrown away most of his belongings, which were water damaged. During their brief conversation, Thompson told Giles he was helping elderly neighbors connect with emergency services.

Thompson could not be reached for comment Thursday for this story.

Farther inland, former McDonald resident Paul Snatchko and his husband, Eric Schrimshaw, were spared severe damage at their home in Lake Nona in southeast Orlando. The first floor of their home, built in 2018, is constructed with cinder block, and the house didn’t sustain any damage. They also did not lose power during the storm.

“At around 9 p.m it started to get really bad, with heavy rain and high winds, but everything held steady,” said Snatchko. “We’re still getting really bad winds (Thursday), but no heavy rain like earlier.”

Hurricane Ivan was not Snatchko’s first encounter with a storm. He and Scrimshaw lived in New York City when Superstorm Sandy struck in 2012. Snatchko also served as councilman for McDonald Borough when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan wreaked havoc on Southwestern Pennsylvania in 2004.

Staff writers Karen Mansfield and Katherine Mansfield contributed to this story.