Hurricane Ian Victim Found in Sailboat He Lived On

72-year-old had been missing since storm hit Fort Myers Beach
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 16, 2023 4:49 PM CST
Hurricane Ian Victim Found in Sailboat He Lived On
Debris surrounds damaged homes on Sept. 29 in Fort Myers Beach, Fla. The remains of the last Lee County person who went missing in the storm has been found.   (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

The body of James "Denny" Hurst, who went missing when Hurricane Ian struck Florida in September, has been located in a sailboat that sank near Fort Myers Beach. Salty Sam's Marina called the Lee County Sheriff's Office when a worker saw the wreckage of a boat in Matanzas Pass, NBC News reports. Divers trying to salvage it found the body. Sheriff Carmine Marceno tweeted that Hurst's last location was on the boat, the Good Girl, which was docked at the time. That was Sept. 28, the day before the Category 4 hurricane made landfall in the area.

Hurst, 72, lived on the boat and had told family members he was going to ride out the hurricane on the Good Girl. "We all know it's him," said his daughter, Shannon Vaughan, per WTVJ. "There's absolutely no doubt." Hurst was the last person still missing in Lee County since Ian hit; the body of Ilonka Knes, 82, was discovered in the mangroves of Fort Myers Beach last week. Florida's death toll in the hurricane is now 141. In addition, five deaths in North Carolina were attributed to the storm, along with one in Virginia and three in Cuba. (More Hurricane Ian stories.)

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