DAYTON — Tyrone Baker, who plays for the University of Dayton Flyers, believes his family in Fort Myers, Fla., stayed put before and while Hurricane Ian hit the southwestern part of the Sunshine State this week.
He joined in a few family group chats via social media and no one said anything about an injury, he said.
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“I’m just praying everyone is okay,” the runner-up told News Center 7’s Brandon Lewis on Friday night. “I don’t want to worry too much. . . because it will be in my head all day. . . . I can’t do anything about it, but I try not to worry about it.
Baker said he was on the phone with his mother on Wednesday when she told him the family home had lost power when he called.
The power was still out on Friday.
“My whole family is here” in Fort Myers, he says, a clan that includes everyone on his mother’s and father’s side.
Baker said he found it hard to believe the photos he had seen via social media – of destroyed homes, cars underwater and water rising to the top of parking lots. He remembers Hurricane Irma, quickly adding, “but this one was worse.”
Hurricane Irma was a Cape Verdean storm that hit Florida and other places in that region in September 2017, the first Category 5 on record to hit the Leeward Islands. An estimated 134 deaths and $77.16 billion in damages have been attributed to Irma.
“Now that it’s over,” he said of Hurricane Ian, “everyone is trying to scramble to get everything they need.”
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Baker said he hopes to be able to return to Fort Myers over the Christmas break from the Flyers’ basketball schedule.
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