ANNA MARIA ISLAND – Hurricane Ian may not have flooded the Island with water, but there has been a different kind of surge since the storm’s passing – tourism.
Island residents are accustomed to having a break this time of year from the busy summer and winter tourist seasons, which have been returning to normal since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in early 2021.
Pre-COVID, September through early December was the slowest time of year, with little traffic and a fraction of the visitors seen in peak seasons. This September followed that pattern, but after Hurricane Ian passed on Sept. 28, things changed.
“We come this time of year, every year for more than 20 years, except when we couldn’t travel during COVID. Are all these people here because of the hurricane, we wonder?” said Margaret Hatch, who is here with her husband from Brighton, England. “We don’t rent a car when we visit, but we’ve noticed that public transport takes much longer due to the increased volume of vehicles on the road.”
While data on how much of an increase the Island is experiencing since Ian hasn’t been aggregated yet by agencies such as Tampa-based Research Data Services, which gathers tourist and visitation data for Manatee County, traffic is an indicator. An Island resident told The Sun she sat through four traffic light cycles at the intersection of East Bay Drive and Manatee Avenue last Saturday afternoon, the kind of traffic the Island normally doesn’t see outside of March and April at the peak of the winter tourist season.
“Some of the people coming here are from down south and have been displaced,” said Lisa Varano, property manager at Wagner Realty. “However, a lot of the calls from people who have been displaced are coming here around Christmas time.”
Most of these visitors are not residents of the affected area in Ian’s path, but rather people from north of the area and the rest of the U.S. who had planned trips to places like Fort Myers, Captiva, Sanibel Island and other areas hit hard by the storm, she said. Tens of thousands of rental units and hotel rooms are no longer available due to hurricane damage.
“We have definitely seen an uptick in bookings from this time next year, but we won’t have the data on where everyone’s coming from until the end of the year,” said Marianne Norman-Ellis of Mike Norman Realty in Holmes Beach. “We don’t know for sure, but we think the increase from last year is from people who were displaced from where they intended to travel.”
It’s not just casual vacationers coming to the Island after Ian. For two weeks following the storm, there were power trucks from around the country that had come to restore service to the Island, Cortez and Bradenton.
“There are 12 of us dirty, smelly guys staying in this house, so while it’s the fanciest and probably most expensive home I’ve ever slept in, we’re not exactly on vacation,” said Dale Miller, a power company line worker whose crew came here from New Jersey and was staying in a luxurious bayfront home in Holmes Beach. “We have it good though, a lot of these guys are sleeping in their trucks – at least we have beds. We have to say though, people down here are so friendly and appreciative. We get high fives, and more people driving by yelling thank you out of their car windows than we can count. I see why people want to live here, and I may bring my family down to enjoy it properly on vacation.”
Varano confirmed what Miller said, saying her office had not gotten calls for rental units for the line workers, but calls were coming in asking for places to park the trucks.
In addition to vacationers and workers, love is in the Island air.
Sally Dirbas, owner of the Monkey Bus, said she was told by some of her customers that weddings that had been planned south of the Island in places affected by Ian had been moved to AMI, and wedding planners were traveling here to fulfill their obligation to their customers despite the added distance.
“We have five wedding rides booked this weekend, this is crazy for this time of year,” she said. “Before the storm, things were really slow and we had a few charters, but nothing like we are seeing in the weeks following. This weekend it will be one wedding after another.”
