Generators and gas. Mops, buckets and tarps. Food and water.
These are Just some of the items being stockpiled and placed in strategic places around Pine Island. A nonprofit group that has helped hundreds of people since Hurricane Ian is preparing for this hurricane season.
Many Southwest Floridians may not have heard as much about damage on Pine Island, compared with how Ian and other storms since ravaged Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach.
Some Pine Islanders still are repairing damage, mostly from flooding, while others fight to safeguard their pieces of paradise.
The Greater Pine Island Alliance, GPIA, formed after Ian. Now the organization is recognized by the federal government as a Long Term Recovery Group, or LTRG. That means it could be involved in receiving money from Washington, D.C., and the state of Florida after disasters. President Donald Trump has talked about transitioning from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to a system in which each state would get disaster recovery money, and perhaps pass some of the help to local groups.
GPIA said it has dried out and rebuilt the homes of about 200 persons or families since Ian in September 2022. It still is working on another 102 homes that need repair. A few were damaged by Ian; many others were flooded by the 2024 storms.
"GPIA has gotten really good at responding to natural disasters," Erin Lollar-Lambert, the executive director, said. "Every single one of our survivors, it goes beyond happy and proud. It's absolute elation to return to a safe and sanitary environment."
An exact figure is not known, but Lollar-Lambert said a significant number of people have left Pine Island after the succession of storms: Ian, Idalia, Debby, Helene, Milton.
Some who remain admit they're worried about more storm surges.
"People are tired. I'm tired," Ellen Ballard said. Her home in Bokeelia flooded twice last fall.
Her husband, Robert, grew up on Pine Island, and has documented its history. He said his ancestors came to Florida in 1850.
He was in his home when Helene pushed water into his place.
"It was a shock," Ballard said. "This house was built in 1968. And in all those years, it never flooded. I didn't break down. I didn't cry or anything. I was just frustrated seeing our furniture destroyed."
People who refuse to surrender Pine Island to the wrath of nature are raising homes, building bigger and higher on the waterfront.
Sixty-five-year-old Henry Brinkmann bought, and moved into, a mobile home in St. James City at the south end of the island. That was spring of 2022. He said earthquakes and fires drove him out of California. He admits he knew nothing about hurricanes when he started hearing about Ian in late September of '22.
"I say, what do they worry about," he recalled.
Then his phone rang on September 28, 2022.
"I got a call from California, a friend says: You gotta get out," Brinkmann said. "I say: What are you talking about? He says: Something major is coming to you!"
That something was Ian. It flooded his home. He said he plowed his truck through high water and barely managed to get off island to a shelter.
Later he dried out and repaired his home.
"I'm a very strong person," he said. "To knock me out, it takes something serious. I am not really afraid of anything, you know."
Brinkmann proved it last summer and fall after hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton surged water into his home. Each time he fixed the damage.
He said he even escaped a near-hit from a tornado during one storm. He tried to evacuate the island, but stopped on the Matlacha bridge, worried the water was getting too deep ahead of him.
Brinkmann said at that moment a friend called and urged him to keep driving and come to the friend's concrete-block home. Brinkmann said OK and drove on. Minutes later a tornado touched down right where he'd been parked.
You might think damage and danger would drive Henry Brinkmann to move away. Not so.
"If something is going to happen to you, it's going to happen no matter what," he said. "That's how I feel anyway."
At the north end of Pine Island, Robert and Ellen Ballard said they are grateful that volunteers, along with FEMA and an insurance company, fixed up their home. Ellen Ballard said she considers it a miracle that they were able to move back in around Christmas last year. That was less than three months after Milton.
However, the Ballards said the next flood in their home will be the last they experience.
"I will never do this again," Ellen Ballard said of the flood recoveries. "It's too expensive. It's too stressful."
Meanwhile the Greater Pine Island Alliance is getting donated goods that can be stationed at buildings known to stay dry during floods. The group's leader said the goal is to be ready to respond to disaster areas at first light the day after a storm passes. People at GPIA said restoring the houses and spirits of their neighbors keep them on Pine Island.
"This is home," Erin Lollar-Lambert said. "My son was born here. My father lives up the street. My grandmother is here. This is an island community of generational families. This is home, and where we want to be."
WGCU is your trusted sources for news and information in Southwest Florida. Mike Walcher is a reporter with WGCU News. He also teaches journalism at FGCU.