Son saves mother trapped in flooded home after Hurricane Ian
Every time flood waters inundate a community, forecasters admonish their viewers not to swim through them because of countless perils potentially hidden under the surface – but Johnny Lauder ignored those warnings after Hurricane Ian’s storm surge trapped his mother, a double amputee, inside her Florida home.
Lauder swam through a half-mile of neck-deep, rapidly moving, debris-filled flood waters that swamped his 84-yearold mother’s neighborhood in Naples to pull her out of the home that she couldn’t flee from ahead of Ian.
While their family lost that house, another home and their cars to the potent category 4 hurricane, Lauder’s actions enabled him and the rest of their loved ones to make plans to rebuild their lives together rather than hold a funeral for their matriarch, Karen Lauder.
The ordeal which the Lauder family endured in part illustrates the dilemma perennially faced by people in the crosshairs of a monstrous storm: whether to ride it out or to get out of its path, which for some is cost-prohibitive or overwhelmingly difficult because of medical conditions as well as other factors.
With everyone he loves now physically safe after Ian, Lauder is asking anyone who has the means to evacuate but is reluctant about it – even when ordered – to reconsider.
“Please heed the warnings,” Lauder, 49, told the Washington Post. “I’d still save my mother all over again, but it’s definitely better to not stick around.”
Initially, forecasters thought the worst of Ian’s effects would hit more than 160 miles north of Naples, in and around Tampa. But Ian ultimately struck Florida’s west coast on 28 September farther south than once anticipated, with its winds of 150mph exposing Naples to a punishing storm surge, or a rise in sea water pushed out in advance of a storm.
As Johnny Lauder – a former Chicago police officer and rescue diver – tells it, his mother was reluctant to evacuate partially because she loathed losing her privacy. Karen Lauder, who uses a wheelchair to get around, had resolved to brave Ian in her house while Johnny sheltered at his son’s home a few blocks away.
Ian’s surge flooded homes in Naples and knocked down power lines, creating a treacherous swamp where streets and sidewalks should be. Water poured into the home where Johnny Lauder took shelter with his two sons and one of his boy’s girlfriends as well as their pets, and the group took refuge in the attic.
Then Karen Lauder called panicking, telling him water was up to her chest.
Johnny Lauder told the Post that he jumped out of a window and began wading through the water, navigating mangled power lines and cars and household items that Ian’s surge had washed away.
One of those items was a kneeboard that Lauder used to help keep himself afloat.
“It was like an act of God when the kneeboard just floated in front of me,” Lauder said, according to the Post. “There was nothing on the street and it just appeared, like, ‘Wow, OK, someone’s looking out for me.’”
Lauder trod through a half-mile of those conditions before finally getting to his mom, who was suffering hypothermia from the cold flood waters. He wrapped a set of dry sheets around her, stacked tables on top of each other to give her a dry spot to rest and waited with her for the water to subside.
One of Lauder’s sons then arrived and helped pull his grandmother out of the home. They started to return to the house from which Johnny Lauder had come from, but then realized one of Karen’s neighbors needed help escaping from her inundated place as night fell.
Lauder’s son pushed his grandma’s wheelchair through water that was now lower than waist-high to the home where the rest of his group was. Lauder rejoined them later after carrying the neighbor to a hotel.
Everyone was safe.
Dramatic rescue stories are almost certainly numerous in Ian’s wake. US Coast Guard officials said they had rescued more than 400 people from high waters kicked up by Ian in Florida and nearby South Carolina.
Some, though, didn’t survive.
As of Monday afternoon, officials said they had confirmed the deaths of more than 80 people in Florida resulting from Ian, and they were worried the grim toll would climb as a search through the wreckage left behind by the storm continued.
The Lauders themselves weren’t wholly spared by Ian. They lacked renter’s insurance for their belongings and have asked people to consider donating to an online GoFundMe campaign to help them rebuild their lives.
Yet Lauder said he’s grateful that what was lost can be replaced. And he said he wouldn’t change anything about what happened after the decision to ride out Ian became irreversible.
“If I would’ve waited, she wouldn’t be here,” Lauder told the Post about embarking on the mission to rescue his mother. “And that’s my mom. I would’ve done it for anybody’s mom or anyone else in that situation. You know – that’s what you’re supposed to do.”