Recovering

Terrifying losses

From page 10

Hurricane Ian took away Gore’s friend Marti Campbell whom she worked closely with when Gore was mayor along with Hernstadt, to reverse a previous council’s actions to remove a fishing pier at the end of Hercules Drive Gore said the pier, as well as two other piers, were preserved due to the advocacy efforts of Campbell, who lived on Hercules Drive

C a m p b e l l , a 7 4 - y e a r - o l d r e t i r e d teacher from Maysville, Kentucky, was killed in her Fort Myers Beach home by Hurricane Ian Gore had received text messages from her throughout the hurricane The last one arrived at 2:58 p m

“Afraid to get out Walls are collapsing around me,” Campbell texted Gore.

Ms Campbell’s brother Robert lived across the street from his sister in a duplex he rented from her Mitch Pacyna, lived in the other unit of the duplex Pacyna, a 74year-old Chicago native who was popular for the sports bar he kept in the basement and for working as a greeter at the town library

Pacyna was in Mr Campbell’s home a l o n g w i t h P a c y n a ’ s w i f e M a r y W o j c i e c h o w s k i w h e n t h e h u r r i c a n e ’ s waters reached the second floor. Pacyna had been posting throughout the day on Facebook, documenting the surging tide

Pacyna’s last post on Facebook was at 1:26 p m

“OK, WE’RE TERRIFIED !!” Pacyna wrote An hour earlier, Pacyna posted a video of the hurricane “how sad to see the bar going down the street Very, very sad and I have to go down the block in a couple days and see what we can salvage There goes our drums,” he said “That’s the saddest thing.” Pacyna speculated he might have to go on the roof if the flood waters went higher

“I jumped out of my second floor win- dow with Mitch,” Mr Campbell said Robert, Mitch and Mary found themselves in surging flood waters. Robert saw Mitch go under the water and never saw him again Mr Campbell said he was saved by a tree “It reached out and grabbed me,” he said He stayed on the tree for about four hours, he said He had to push back boards and other debris away from the tree “My job was to protect that tree,” Campbell said Mary survived by hanging onto a railing 30 feet from the home, he said “The water was over my front door, 12-15 feet,” he said.

Campbell said Pacyna loved all sports, but especially Chicago sports and legendary Bears running back Walter Payton Pacyna would have five television sets playing sports in the basement bar Folks would visit him from all over “People would sit down and expect to be served,” Campbell said Pacyna was happiest on the “rare occasions” when all the Chicago sports teams were playing on television at once If there was a night when the Cubs, Blackhawks, Bears and Bulls were playing “he would be in heaven,” Campbell said

Mr Campbell, a retired professor from Youngstown State University, said his sister was a “really important person to the island in terms of preservation ” In addition to saving the pier, she worked to preserve palm trees along the road that had been set to be cleared He said she liked to work on her garden A middle school science teacher for 30 years, she bought a house on Fort Myers Beach in 1992 “She loved it here,” Mr Campbell said He said C a m p b e l l w o u l d g o b a c k t o v i s i t Kentucky from time to time but preferred to be on Fort Myers Beach to tend to her plants, her cats and her fish

“She liked the sheer beauty” of Fort Myers Beach and its people, Campbell said Campbell is believed to have been the last person found on Fort Myers Beach, having been located underneath debris on Oct 7, nine days after the hurricane struck.

“It was the worst week of my life,” Mr Campbell said

See RECOVERING, page 14