Florida Hurricane Ian Relief
October 2022 – September 2024
Last updated: May 2024
All Hands and Hearts (AHAH) is in Florida responding to the devastating impacts of 2022’s Hurricane Ian. Utilizing our volunteer-powered disaster relief model, as of May 2024, we have impacted over 1,560 people affected by the hurricane.
Our Work
Since the program’s launch in October 2022, All Hands and Hearts has conducted various scopes of disaster relief work in Ft. Myers and surrounding Lee County, which suffered massive damage to homes and infrastructure in the hurricane. In our second year of operation, our goal remains to get vulnerable community members back into safe, secure, and functional homes.
The impact of this work extends beyond physical improvements. For the families and individuals assisted so far, each property cleared, each home stripped of muck and mold or repaired provides a foundation for renewed hope. Together, the households assisted in contributing to a stronger, revitalized community.
Current Activities
Last month, AHAH completed additional muck and guts, mold sanitation and five interior home rebuilds with Red Cross funding for individuals enduring long-term illness or disability, unmet financial needs and persistent displacement since the hurricane.
In addition, we are introducing a new initiative to install hurricane shutters for 20 homes to protect mainly against windborne debris and ensure they are resistant to future hurricanes. Nearly 19 months after the hurricane, individuals are still living in unsafe homes or temporary housing.
The team also participated in a day of home rebuilding with Habitat for Humanity, as well as a beach cleanup at Fort Myers beach with The Ocean Blue Project.
Disaster Profile
Hurricane Ian started as a tropical depression on September 24, 2022, and underwent a rapid intensification, making its first landfall in Cuba as a category 3 hurricane. After intensifying to a category 4 hurricane, it made a second landfall on the west coast of Florida near Fort Myers on September 28, causing devastating impacts to coastal cities and towns along with catastrophic flooding further inland. Ian’s 150 mph winds, storm surge and rainfall caused power outages across the state, damaged infrastructure and overturned cars and boats. After slowly crossing central Florida, the storm exited at Daytona Beach and made another landfall in South Carolina as a category 1 storm.
Ian ties seven other storms as the fifth strongest to make landfall in the United States. Its wind speed was shy of a category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 157 mph. At landfall, there was at least a 12-foot storm surge in the Fort Myers area, destroying homes and causing extensive flooding.