As Hurricane Irma made its final advance on Naples, a metropolitan area of about 320,000 people on the west coast of Florida, the impact of the storm could already be seen – though much more was on its way.
Trees were down across some of the main highways through the town and billboards had collapsed, forming heaps of twisted metal beside the road.
Irma had slowed, delaying its terrifying impact on towns and cities up and down the Gulf coast. That meant police cars ordered off the streets on Saturday night could come back out to patrol, to offer reassurance.
But the desperation of thousands of local people was palpable, particularly in the shelters that had been opened for those exposed to the mighty winds and dangerous tidal storm surge that was imminent.
Across Florida, authorities said 127,000 people had entered such facilities instead of evacuating, as around seven million people had managed to do, answering dire warnings from government, law enforcement and emergency services. Many heading for the shelters were simply unable to evacuate, rather than unwilling. In Naples, hundreds only managed to find refuge in the final hours before Irma was scheduled to strike. They had dramatic stories to tell.
At the First Baptist church of Naples, about 200 people converged on the premises on Saturday night after the pastors opened their doors as a last-minute decision at 5pm. Several of the evacuees were facing a desperate plight.
Mary Della Ratta, 94, lives alone in a first-floor condo in the south of the city in a zone that was likely to be flooded within a matter of hours from the storm surge whipped up by Irma. She asked her neighbors to help her but according to Della Ratta they refused, slamming the door in her face.
“I have nobody in the world,” said Della Ratta, whose husband died in 2007 and who has no children. “My neighbors don’t help me, they call me names, they just want to get rid of me.”
She was brought to the shelter by police on Saturday night, in an eleventh-hour rescue mission when the arrival of the storm seemed imminent. Now she was warm and safe, sitting in a wheelchair, wrapped in a blanket she knitted herself. But she remained extremely agitated and apprehensive about her future.
“I’m frightened by what’s going to happen,” she said. “I want to go home, but will I ever be able to?”
Kevin Taylor, a minister at First Baptist, said the church decided to open its doors on Saturday after its members heard that other shelters in the city were full to capacity. First Baptist is a mega-church, with a congregation of 10,000 and vast premises that include a school and a large sports hall where evacuees were hunkering down, many sleeping on air beds and mattresses. Others played board games.
Taylor said a lot of people were in a bad condition when they arrived at the church on Saturday night.
“Many people were shaking,” he said. “We did a lot of praying with people just to calm them down.”
Mallory Giangrande, 67, was playing Rummikub, a kind of card game using tiles, with a few of her newfound friends, relationships made under the welcoming roof of the shelter. She arrived at First Baptist having made a terrifying tour of other shelters in the city with limited petrol in her car, being turned away by location after location, all of them already full.
“I was scared, nervous, upset,” she said.
Despite the thickening storm, and the growing feeling of foreboding in Naples, Pastor Taylor was determined to put on a positive face for all who were seeking shelter in the church.
“There are a lot of good people who are going to come and help us from all over the country,” he said. “This is the moment that America shows its true self.”
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