There’s nothing here,” he said to his daughter on the phone.
His daughter called him as he stood near the water, in awe of the hellish destruction where he stood. Leisure said during the storm his neighborhood about 5 miles away in Crown Colony Golf & Country Club was under 4 to 5 feet of water, resulting in flooded garages and storm surges that increased the lakes’ water levels “so high it looked like the ocean.” He was stuck inside his home until Thursday once waters had receded. “As far as rebuilding, I have no idea what I’m going to do,” he said. What little recognizable things remain, Leisure said he doesn’t know what to do with. A 50-foot-long tiki hut, his boat, nearly all the things that make up Leisure’s business, were carried out with Ian’s unforgiving waters. There is no trace of the two staircases that once attached to both sides of his building, leading up to the second floor. I didn’t expect it to be total annihilated,” he said. “This is my first look … I thought maybe the building would still be there and some of the docks would be gone. Unsalvageable everyday household belongings - a couch, a mattress, a suitcase, a pillow, a family photo of two women embracing on a sunny beach - stuck out among the pulverized wood and buildings in the water and parking lot of Leisure’s business. Where a row of docks once stood, an island of plywood and debris pooled against the concrete wall. The building had been submerged at one point, so much so that a boat floating in the storm surge punctured a window on the second floor of the building before it was swept away, he said. Tanks where the bait shop used to be were among the few discernable items inside.
The inside was filled with debris to the point of looking like “a bomb went off,” he said. The two-story, 50-year-old building that used to house a bait shop, retail and gift shop, two offices, two apartments and a newly built coffee shop that hadn’t yet opened its doors was relegated to only the bare wooden structure of the first floor. Robert Leisure, owner of Getaway Marina at Pelican Bay, arrived at his business on San Carlos Boulevard in Fort Myers Beach Thursday to find it essentially unrecognizable.
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