Almost 4 months after Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida, the physique of a person lacking for the reason that storm has been present in a sunken sailboat off Fort Myers Seaside, Lee County officers stated. The invention of the person's physique comes simply days after the identical authorities introduced that they had discovered the stays of an 82-year-old girl additionally lacking after the storm.
Lee County officers first introduced the invention of the sunken sailboat on Friday afternoon. A dive crew had discovered the boat, named "Good Woman," in Matanzas Cross, saying that James "Denny" Hurst, 72, was final recognized to have been on board the boat when Hurricane Ian hit the state in September.
On Sunday, the county's sheriff Carmine Marceno tweeted that the stays had been positively recognized as Hurst's. His household has been notified, Marceno stated.
Hurst was the final particular person within the county who was nonetheless thought-about lacking by authorities after officers introduced final week that the stays of 82-year-old Ilonka Knes had been present in a thicket of mangroves.
Hurst's nephew, Jeff Hurst, wrote on Fb that his uncle's boat was noticed amid low tides within the space. Finally, he stated, it was "submerged just a few tenths of a mile from the marina it was tied up at when Hurricane Ian hit."
Crew members from Sea Hag Marina in Fort Myers who've been serving to clear up within the aftermath of the lethal storm helped the sheriff's workplace find Hurst, saying the sailboat was observed in 18 toes of water "with simply sufficient visibility to see a chunk of the boat."
"Our guys have been capable of help the dive crew in lifting the boat out of the water and onto land," the marina stated on Fb. "...Had the water not of been clear at the moment, we aren't certain how for much longer it will have been for the boat to be seen. The definition of divine timing is the assumption that the whole lot in your life occurs at precisely the suitable second and we actually consider that at the moment was a type of days for everybody concerned."
Earlier than the discovering of Hurst and Knes' stays, the Florida Medical Examiners Fee stated there have been 145 confirmed deaths from Hurricane Ian, making the whole now 147.