Crowdsourcing a rescue effort
Many people whose loved ones stayed behind in the pathway of Hurricane Ian are crowdsourcing rescue efforts as they grapple with the helplessness of waiting and not knowing.
In TikTok videos and Facebook posts, families are sharing their desperate pleas and strangers are answering their calls, even as local officials urge people to use official channels for help.
Hannah Foltz had assumed that her grandparents, Janet and Larry, evacuated from their mobile home in Naples, Florida. But when the 35-year-old in Indiana heard from her mother, she learned that they had not only stayed, but the water that flooded their home was almost chest deep, with the fridge floating. Her 75-year-old grandmother didn’t know how to swim.
She turned to a Facebook group of more than 400,000 people, #HurricaneStrong. ‘‘They are terrified, and both have health conditions,’’ she posted in the group, along with her grandparents’ address.
She didn’t expect for even one social media user to head out to her grandparents’ home and report back so quickly. But that was followed by another good Samaritan, and then two more.
‘‘Knowing that there are people out there that just literally want to go help a complete stranger,’’ she said. ‘‘That was just like a miracle.’’
An informal digital structure built on the backs of previous disasters was on full display in the midst of Ian’s fury.
Users shared online forms to request and volunteer for rescues. Facebook groups sprang up with pleas for help, including phone numbers and addresses, and offers from volunteers to step in.
Authorities continue to urge Floridians to use official emergency channels, like 911, to report immediate distress, not social media, which can be unreliable and even put the good Samaritans who respond in danger.
Kingman Schuldt, greater Naples retired fire chief with the International Association of Fire
Chiefs, said social media users should also be discreet with how much public information they shared about their loved ones online, ‘‘because there are bad actors’’.
The posts are pulling on heartstrings and driving some to rush in to help.
There was a brief moment Wednesday when Heather Donlan’s 87-year-old father, Jack, called his daughter for what he thought would be the last time. A pipe had burst in his Naples home and water was coming in from the outside, trapping him inside.
Donlan, whose Naples home was also taking on water, had already called 911 about her dad and was told that rescuers would try to get to him, but the roads were impassable. There was no way she could reach him herself.
A firefighter friend recommended that she share her post on Facebook and see if anyone in the area could come to her father’s aid. A local teacher and her sons walked through the water to get to Donlan’s dad, then drove him to Donlan’s home.
‘‘That social media post 100% saved his life,’’ Donlan said.
A revived Hurricane Ian has pounded coastal South Carolina, ripping apart piers and flooding streets after the ferocious storm caused catastrophic damage in Florida, trapping thousands of people in their homes and leaving at least 27 dead.
The powerful storm, estimated to be one of the costliest hurricanes ever to hit the US, pummelled western
Cuba and raked across Florida before gathering strength in the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean to curve back and strike South Carolina. As it moved towards North Carolina yesterday, it dropped from a hurricane to a post-tropical cyclone.
Ian left a broad swathe of destruction in Florida, flooding areas on both of coasts, tearing homes from their foundation slabs, demolishing beachfront businesses, and leaving more than 2 million people without power.
Many of the deaths were drownings. The toll is expected to increase substantially once emergency officials have an opportunity to search many of the hardest-hit areas.
Rescue crews have piloted boats and waded through riverine streets in Florida to save thousands of people trapped amid flooded homes and shattered buildings .
Ian had caused ‘‘well over US$100 billion (NZ$178b)’’ worth of damage, including US$63b (NZ$112b) in privately insured losses, according to disaster modelling firm Karen Clark & Company. If those numbers are borne out, that would make Ian at least the fourth-costliest hurricane in US history.