What Hurricane Ian really cost me

The storm hit us hard

I'm a photographer and creative director. I live in Cape Coral, Florida. Hurricane Ian made landfall on September 28, 2022 as a Category 4 storm, one of the strongest to ever hit Southwest Florida. It put four to five feet of water through my home. Like hundreds of thousands of other Florida homeowners, I filed a claim and waited.

The settlement arrived

After months of documentation, inspections, and negotiations, a settlement arrived. It was not everything I had hoped for, it rarely is, but it was substantial enough to rebuild. I had done everything the right way: filed promptly, documented what I could, stayed patient through the process.

What happened next was not covered in any guide I had read.

The contractor

I hired a contractor. He came recommended. He had vehicles with logos. He gave me a written estimate. I checked some things, or I thought I checked some things. I paid a deposit. Work started. Then it slowed. Then stopped. Then the contractor stopped returning calls. By the time I understood what had happened, a significant portion of my settlement was gone and the work was less than half finished.

"I had done everything right with the insurance. And then I handed the money to the wrong person."

What I did not know

I did not know how to verify a Florida contractor license beyond asking to see it. I did not know what a safe payment schedule looks like. I did not know the specific red flags, the ones that seem like normal contractor behavior until you understand what they actually signal. They're all on the checklist now.

The class that came too late

Months after the contractor situation, I attended a hurricane preparedness class taught by a licensed Florida public adjuster, someone who had spent years inside exactly this system. Sitting in that room, I recognized every mistake I had made. The information existed. It was available. I just had not found it before I needed it.

Why this exists

I'm a photographer. I build things visually, and I keep records. It turned out I had kept every document from my own claim: the policies, the proofs of loss, the estimates, the invoices, the letters. That file taught me something the class confirmed: the homeowners who come through this best are the ones who can prove things.

So After the Storm does two jobs. It puts the information where people can find it, before the storm, not after. And it does the one thing I'm professionally built for: documenting properties to the standard this process demands, before the season or after the damage.

I am not a lawyer. I am not a licensed adjuster. I am a Florida homeowner who got taken and decided to make sure the record-keeping that would have protected me is available to everyone, in English and in Spanish.

That is the whole story. I hope it helps.