FT. MYERS BEACH, Fla. — The official death toll from Hurricane Ian stands at 153 lives lost.
A majority couldn't survive the physical impacts the terrifying category four storm brought, like blunt force trauma, heart attacks, and drowning, but some died from the emotional stress of taking their own lives.
In just a few hours, Hurricane Ian's 14-plus foot storm surge changed the physical landscape of Ft. Myers Beach, leaving scars that are both visible and invisible.
"Everybody on this island has some level of PTSD," Adrian Barrett said.
ABC Action News reporter Michael Paluska sat down with Alice and Adrian Barrett, husband and wife, inside their Ft. Myers Beach home. The transplants from Aurora, Illinois, survived many blizzards and tornadoes and can now add a category-four hurricane to the list.
"Could you even think about surviving another storm mentally?" Paluska asked Ft. Myers Beach residents Alice and Adrian Barrett.
"It would be tough, but we would probably survive and go on," Alice Barrett said. "We are made of that. Very tough stuff."
"Stubborn," her husband Adrian said with a smile.
The home is their retirement from the snow-filled winters of the North. They never expected a hurricane to bring water into their attack and destroy everything they owned.
The stress for the couple in their 70s at times was too much to handle.
"He got very sick on us," Alice Barrett said. "It put him in the hospital a couple of times. It was stress and gallbladder going out. You could just see it drain him. He just wasn't him."
The official cause of death for the people who lost their lives is difficult to read. There are a lot of adjectives to describe what is written in the Florida Medical Examiners Commission Hurricane Ian Disaster Death Report. But one word sticks out to you, "suicide."
In total, out of 153 people whose deaths are attributed to the storm, six took their own lives.
How some people took their lives is heartbreaking. But, many acted in the first moments of their despair. There is the 73-year-old man "who shot himself after seeing property damage due to hurricane Ian," according to the report. Or the person who left a suicide note blaming "a ruined house."
Paluska sat down with an expert at SalusCare to ask how we can reach those storm victims at that moment when they've lost all hope before they take their own lives.
"To hear someone lost their life from the storm because they took their own life. What does that say to you?" Paluska asked Laura Guarino, a licensed clinician at SalusCare.
"Every life matters, every life matters. The storm left impacts that are lifelong," Guarino said. "988 is the suicide prevention lifeline, 988…. someone will pick up no matter what, 24 hours, seven days a week to talk to somebody."
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
For the Barrett family, they leaned heavily on themselves and, at times, the compassion of strangers.
But what the Barretts say healed them the most was their dog, Jameson. They spend countless hours driving her around the island in her signature pink Jeep and goggles.
"We're getting stronger every day. But you know, it's one step in front of the other. And some days you have slides and other days you got your running real fast," Alice Barrett said.
"We're picking it up one piece at a time," Adrian Barrett said.
"We are survivors. We will survive anything," both said with a smile.
Pasco County mom says dangerous walk to school is putting student lives at risk
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