Hurricane Ian, a near category 5 monster of wind, waves and catastrophic storm surge, roared ashore at Cayo Costa a year ago on Sept. 28, 2022, destroying much of Fort Myers Beach and heavily damaging Sanibel, Captiva, Matlacha and parts of Cape Coral, North Fort Myers and Fort Myers.

Winds were marked at 155 mph with gusts up to 161.

Storm surge of 16 feet inundated Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Captiva and breached the Sanibel Causeway in multiple places and the bridge to Matlacha.

Lee County took 14-1/2 inches of rainfall in the hours after Ian’s 3:05 p.m. landfall and the storm’s lingering presence.

There were 161 deaths, 149 of them in Florida with 72 in Lee County, including 16 on Fort Myers Beach.

More than 5,000 homes and 284 businesses were destroyed. Thousands more incurred major damage.

Ian was the fourth-strongest landfalling hurricane in Florida history, the fifth strongest in the U.S.

It is the third most costly behind Katrina in 2005 and Harvey in 2017. Damage estimates exceed $112 billion to homes and businesses; $297.3 million to Lee County properties and facilities, $300 million to public school campuses.

One year later, all but two of the School District of Lee County’s schools are re-opened.

One year later, our parks and beaches are almost fully accessible.

One year later, the nearly 12.5 million square yards of debris — strewn along roadways, piles of construction wreckage and mountains of destroyed vegetation– is gone.

But one year later, too many of us — homeowners, businesses and government entities alike — wait to be made whole as insurance payments and settlements drag and disaster funds continue to trickle in.

We’ll not complain too much about government response, at least at the state level. Gov. Ron DeSantis was here when Southwest Florida needed him and emergency funds and efforts for things like the repairs to the Sanibel Causeway and the Matlacha Bridge, made a huge difference.

Huge.

On Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, the governor announced the awarding of $338 million in hurricane recovery program monies, including $51 million each to the city of Cape Coral and the Lee County School District.

One year later, though, the federal government and yes, the state, need to do more, especially in making insurance affordable and available.

The Florida State Legislature has begun the process. Legislation has addressed insurers’ costs by prohibiting assignment of benefits to third parties, allowing for mandatory arbitration and addressing “bad faith” claims and how attorney fees are awarded.

For those of us who pay the premiums, insurance companies are now required to respond more quickly and face higher fines for failing to do so. We, though, also must respond more quickly, filing claims within one year, instead of two.

At the heart of the issue is how to address catastrophic claims, those FEMA classifies as disasters. There are 10 on the current list, including Hurricane Idalia, but also wildfires, flooding and a variety of severe storms.

Years ago, the federal government recognized that floods were a natural disaster of such scope that it partnered with a network of insurance companies, now standing at 50, to better assure affordable coverage.

We recognize that in the last year or so, modifications have been made that have negatively affected flood insurance rates locally. We still contend that needs to be fixed.

But discussions on extraordinary catastrophic events, such a category 4 or 5 hurricane, or a wildfire of thousands of acres, may warrant coverage separate from a simple homeowners policy and spread over policy holders nationwide.

And one more thing, one year later. We fail to understand why Congress has failed to consider legislation to designate Hurricane Ian as a qualified disaster, which would give Southwest Florida additional — and deserved — relief.

This must be done now.

As Mary Feichthaler, a Cape Coral-based CPA, explains in her guest column in today’s Breeze, the Oct. 15 extended deadline to file personal income tax returns is nearly upon us, and the ability “to maximize loss deductions without claiming other itemized deductions” would benefit those who took the heaviest hits. We invite you to read her column, which may be found on page 35.

We invite you to read, as well, two other efforts concerning Hurricane Ian.

The first, a special edition, “Hurricane Ian One Year Later,” may be found inside today’s Breeze.

At 56 pages and encompassing three separate sections, it provides a bit of a look back but focuses on recovery among the communities the Breeze Newspapers is proud to serve.

We thank those who took the time to speak with our reporters, to contribute stories or photographs, or to advertise their own efforts and recoveries.

We have, indeed, come a long way and much more quickly than any of us would have thought as we stood among the damage to our homes, our businesses and our communities and weighed the impacts on our lives.

The second is “Ian,” a 128-page hardcover book produced by the Breeze Newspapers. It features stories, first-person accounts and more than 100 photographs, most of them crowd-sourced, which truly makes the book a grassroots effort.

We thank everyone for their contributions.

“Ian” is your story, one year later.

Copies are available for purchase on our onlinestore at capecoralbreeze.com or at our office at 2510 Del Prado Blvd. Details may be found in our story on page 4C of the special section inside.

— Breeze editorial