DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Iola native Charlene Delgado escaped the brunt of Hurricane Ian, which pummeled parts of Florida last week, leaving devastation in its wake.
Delgado, who grew up in Iola and graduated from Iola High School in 1988, lives in Daytona Beach, which received flooding rain and hurricane-force winds, but suffered significantly less damage than other cities, such as Fort Myers and Naples.
The storm barrelled through Florida on Sept. 28, first making landfall from the Gulf of Mexico as a category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 115 mph.
By the time the system reached Daytona on the Atlantic seaboard, it had weakened to 75 mph, a category 1 storm. Still, within a few hours, Ian had dumped more than 13 inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service.
“The only evacuations were trailer homes and camping grounds,” Delgado wrote to the Register.
Delgado’s home was mostly unscathed, aside from “a couple of leaks in the ceiling, which were small,” she said. “My fence had massive damage.”
Delgado, the former Charlene Heath, moved to Florida 18 years ago, and works at the Plaza Resort and Spa.
The resort sustained some flood damage, as well as shattered balcony glass doors, and was without power for the following few days, she said.
Delgado has gone through eight such hurricanes since moving to Florida.
“Ian, so far, was worse than (Hurricane) Michael,” Delgado said of the 2018 storm that ravaged much of the Florida Panhandle, and like Ian, had an impact on other parts of the state.
And having grown up in Kansas, she’s well aware of the threat of dangerous weather, and takes storms seriously, but without fear.
“I am grounded in Florida,” she said. “A hurricane is not going to stop me from living here.”
