Right earlier than dropping cellphone connection, Fort Myers, Florida, resident Stan Pentz informed his daughter he was going to drown.
Then the cellphone minimize out, and he wasn’t in a position to make contact along with his household for 20 hours.
Pentz informed CNN’s Kate Bolduan that he knew he needed to bounce out of his apartment and begin swimming as soon as the water rose to about two toes to the highest of his roof.
“I already had about two feet left looking out over the roof, and I just jumped out and started swimming. And I was trying to get to the other building [next door] that was the second floor and I didn’t make it. I got swished away, and I went around the building and I was able to find some bushes and I grabbed onto it, pulled myself in, halfway in, and I just stayed there for hours. Hours, with the wind blowing and the water gushing over my head,” Pentz stated.
“And then the wind shifted back, so it started, the surge was the other way so it was starting to get lower. So I don’t know how many hours it was, but I was able to get down and get across, get to the building, get up to the second floor, found myself a spot … where the wind wasn’t and the rain, and I got into a corner and I stayed there all night,” Pentz continued.
Pentz stated occupied with his youngsters and grandchildren saved him going.
His daughter, Stephanie Downing, informed CNN she thought of each potential situation through the time that she couldn’t make contact together with her father.
Once they had been reunited, she jokingly stated, “I laid my head on his chest and I said, ‘Hey Michael Phelps, you had a nice swim.’”
Pentz stated he has misplaced every little thing to Hurricane Ian.
“I lost everything that was in there. Everything that I’ve had for my life, all my life. … Pictures are gone,” he stated.
“I remember when I got out of there and I started swimming, and I was swimming and next thing you know, I hit something on my foot and I went ‘oh, that’s my car.’ My car is under there. I lost that, too. Just everything. But, you know, I got my kids,” he stated.