The body of a man who went missing during Hurricane Ian in the Fall of last year has been found on a sunken sailboat in Florida.
Hurricane Ian was the deadliest Category 4 hurricane to hit Florida since the mid-30s. Reuters has estimated that it caused almost $112 billion in catastrophic damage across Florida, Cuba, North Carolina, and Virginia as it hit in September 2022.
Millions of people lost power during Ian's wake, and many people were forced to take refuge on the roofs of their homes. Around 40,000 people were displaced, and it's thought that the hurricane resulted in the deaths of at least 147 people.
The number of fatalities could very well be much higher, however, as local authorities in Florida discovered during the past week when they recovered the body of a man who went missing during the catastrophic weather event.
James Hurst, 72, had been the only person still missing after Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida, and was last known to have been onboard his boat - named the Good Girl - at the time of his disappearance. According to USA Today, Hurst's daughter Shannon Vaughn had reported him missing on October 6, after he went out on his boat in Fort Myers Beach. He last spoke with his family in the afternoon on September 28, after which he suddenly lost contact at around 3:00 PM.
His body was eventually discovered last Friday (January 13) when the Lee County Sheriff's office announced that their dive team had discovered his sunken boat in Matanzas Pass in Fort Myers Beach. "Mr. Hurst’s family has been notified. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family," the sheriff's office announced, via USA Today.
Earlier in the week, the body of an elderly woman was also recovered "deep within the mangroves" on the same beach, NBC reported.
Sheriff Carmine Marceno stated at a news conference that the body of 82-year-old Ilonka Knes was discovered in the mangroves on Fort Myers Beach, saying: "These areas are impassable by boat and they're not visible by the air [...] This was a really heavily affected area."
Knes' family had reportedly requested a welfare check on October 7, however, authorities were unable to reach her. She was officially declared missing on October 15 after several failed attempts to contact her. When her body was eventually discovered last week - a mere 0.16 miles from her home - she was identified through dental records, per CNW. Her cause of death was ruled as accidental drowning.
Her husband, 81-year-old Robert Knes, had sadly been found dead shortly after the storm struck. Ilonka Knes and James Hurst were the only two missing persons that local authorities were trying to locate.
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