Rustic Fishing Towns Faced Ian’s Wrath. Now at the Height of Tourism Season, ‘We’re in a Lot Better Shape’

Howie Grimm rinses more than 300 pounds of cooked stone crab claws at Grimm’s Stone Crab in Everglades City on Friday. Grimm, who is also the town’s mayor, says now that most of the Hurricane Ian repairs are complete, “The town is open and working.” Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/TNS

By Bill Kearney From South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Fort Lauderdale–Chokoloskee and Everglades City, two fishing villages-turned-travel-destinations that sit next to each other on the cusp of Everglades National Park and the Gulf of Mexico, have seen more than their share of hurricane destruction—most recently Donna in 1960, Wilma in 2005, and then Irma in 2017 and Ian in 2022.