These are people who were killed by Hurricane Ian

Paxton Schuline, 74, of Fort Myers Beach, Florida, a beloved mayor during Hurricane Irm Yankees

He was nicknamed “The Mayor of FortMyers Beach” because of his welcoming nature, his daughter said.

Pacyna, 74, died in Fort Myers Beach while he and his wife were trying to get to higher ground during Hurricane Ian, his daughter Michelle Schuline told CNN. Now his wife Mary Wojciechowski and family are coping with the loss of their beloved husband, father and grandfather.

“Whenever somebody [new] would come to town … he would meet them and welcome them and sit down, have a drink and just welcome to the community,” Schuline said. He was the life of the party. He enjoyed his friends and spending time with them and celebrating their successes.”

The real magnitude of Hurricane Ian’s death toll is still unknown, with more than 100 deaths in the southeast, a large majority of which were in Florida, according to a CNN tally. While residents of parts of Florida are still without power, others are without clean running water because of the recent storms.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/04/us/victims-hurricane-ian/index.html

Mark Graff and Nishelle Harris-Miles: Losing a Family Member in Fort Myers after Hurricane Irma

Schuline said that he understood that the man didn’t make it out of the collapsing house. The couple was trying to get to shelter, she said.

“[She’s] obviously in shock, devastated. They were together for 30 years, so losing somebody like that and being there when it happened is really hard on her,” Schuline said. She is having a hard time understanding what is happening and coming to grips with it.

Pacyna hailed from the Chicago area and was a diehard fan of the Cubs, Blackhawks and Bears. He visited his home state in May to celebrate his granddaughters’ graduations from high school and college, Schuline said.

The Sheriff’s office said Markgraff died in Zolfo Springs after Hurricane Ian flooded parts of the state.

A detective told Verdream on Tuesday that he was found in a canal on Friday, September 30. The condition of his body was consistent with other victims that had been recovered, she was told.

“He built a lot of homes and buildings on Sanibel Island and in the Fort Myers area, so I’m sure a lot of his hard work was probably destroyed by this hurricane,” Rudolph said.

Mother of four, Nishelle Harris-Miles, traveled to Florida to celebrate her 40th birthday, but now her family is preparing to bury her after she was identified as one of the victims of Hurricane Ian.

The group of friends quickly realized it was not safe to be in Fort Myers, but could not find anyone willing to pick them up from where they were staying, Harris-Miles’ mother said.

“They were on top of a mattress and two of the girls couldn’t swim, so they tied themselves together with a sheet to try to keep each other safe,” she said. “They started kicking and hollering, begging for help. The ceiling fell on them.

“Her sister held her hand until Nishelle stopped moving,” Harris said. “They stayed in a makeshift shelter with Nishelle’s body for 16 hours until the shelter started to crack …” The neighbor told them to leave for safety reasons, so they left her body there, Harris said.

Harris-Miles leaves behind two daughters and two sons, her mother said. A family friend created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for her funeral expenses.

“She was always the life of the party,” Harris said. She was a loving person and also a caring one. She enjoyed life. My daughter was loved by many people.

Her uncle Mike Verdream moved in after her dad passed and helped her mother raise her and her brother.

“He was always there for me growing up, teaching me how to drive and taking me to the fair,” she said. The cool uncle bought me a dirt bike and Jet Ski so I could go out on the lake with him. He loved us so much.

On Wednesday, Verdream said she spoke with her uncle. Her cousin spoke with him later that day and he said the water was four feet deep before telling her he had to go.

Verdream said that the call was brief because he had said he was scared and she hadn’t heard him like that before. “He’s always put on a brave face.”

The family kept calling and trying to reach him, but the phone went straight to voice mail, Verdream said. They posted his information on Facebook to try to get people to see him.

The family was told Friday that her uncle had survived the storm and was helping people. They were told he was unable to call because his phone had gotten wet.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/04/us/victims-hurricane-ian/index.html

Victims of Hurricane Ian: Ian Conway in a Florida Airline Pilot and the Greatest Thing he’s Ever Learned

Verdream said that the man would give the shirt off his back if someone needed it. Always worried about helping other people.

Former airline pilot Ian Conway immigrated to the United States from Australia in the 1980s and had lived in Florida ever since, said his daughter Margot Conway.

He was brilliant. His daughter said his whole world was flying. He has traveled the world many times. He was too sick to fly, and so it was his entire world.

“He was found wrapped up on the bench outside his home on the shuffleboard court,” Conway said. “He told me would go to a shelter if a storm ever came. I’m not sure why he didn’t go.”

The neighbor of Conway’s called her on September 29 to tell her that her father had died during the storm. She was told by the sheriff’s office that her father had drowned.

The community around him is the best thing I’ve ever seen. “These strangers I’ve never even spoken to hugged me and told me stories about him.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/04/us/victims-hurricane-ian/index.html

An Update on Victims of Hurricane Ian: CNN Meets with the Families of a Storm-Injured Woman and Their Ex-Boss

Andrew said his mother, Elizabeth, was found dead in her home after the storm. Police told him that his mother died in her room holding her cell phone and that it looked as though she died instantly.

Her family had last spoken to McGuire on Wednesday and had trouble reaching her since then, Chedester said. People called for awellness check when nobody heard from her.

A detective from the Cape Coral Police Department knocked at his door on Friday and told him of his mother’s death. He said that he had received a call from his mother’s ex-boyfriend.

He talked about how the two would always joke around. “‘Get your head up little b*tch, you will be all right,'” When the times were hard, his mom would tell him.

CNN spoke to her mother, Susan McGuire, who learned of her daughter’s death through her grandson, Chedester. She said her daughter had been disabled from a blood clot and had been suffering from deep vein thrombi.

During the storm Susan McGuire was stranded on Pine Island in Florida where there was limited cell phone service. She worried the worst about her daughter, especially with her medical condition, she said.

“One hundred blizzards will not cost you what one hurricane will cost you,” said Susan McGuire, who had moved to the area from Maryland years ago. “My husband’s business is wiped out, my daughter is dead. The destruction is massive. I never had a snowstorm take anything away from me.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/04/us/victims-hurricane-ian/index.html

Three deaths in mobile home deaths in the Silver City, Mississippi, storm caused by a deadly outbreak of lightning and tornadoes over the weekend

“He was driving his truck on wet roads during the storm when it left the roadway and into a swamp, where he drowned,” Keith Acree, spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, told CNN in a statement.

Three people died in separate vehicle-related incidents on Friday, according to a release from Gov. Roy Cooper’s Office. Someone died from carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator in a closed garage. No information was given about the other death.

When Dominique Green left her 2-year-old daughter Aubrey with her parents in their Mississippi mobile home Friday evening, she didn’t know she would lose a daughter and give birth to a son within 24 hours.

Her mother was watching three other granddaughters while her mother was at work.

They didn’t know that the Silver City neighborhood would soon be hit by a tornado. Their parents had all four grandchildren and their own two young children, ages 10 and 11, in the mobile home with them when the tornado struck.

It tore the mobile home apart, leaving nothing but debris. Aubrey died from the impact and Kaleb sustained a severe brain injury. His mother said that he was in an intensive care unit.

A deadly outbreak of storms and tornadoes over the weekend left a trail of destruction in several states, including 21 deaths in Mississippi alone.

When Winston and his family discovered the death of his brother, Kaneb, they’re going to try to wake up and tell him what he’s thinking

She saw the baby laying close to her grandmother and the ambulance was doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her.

“I heard something like a train … my older son was saying ‘get down on the floor get down on the floor!’” When she went to look at her sister’s mobile home, there was no one there.

She loved to play on a rocking horse that was later found lying among the debris. Green was in the hospital after giving birth to a baby boy.

On Sunday, the family found out Winston’s brother had died from an apparent heart attack unrelated to the storm. They will be waiting for littleKaleb to wake up and prepare for the two funerals.

Drain said that he was praying for a day at a time every minute every second. They are going to try to wake him up to see what he is thinking. They say they can’t tell because he’s been taken out of consciousness.