Fleeing Hurricane Ian, Naples couple finds refuge in Miami

MIAMI – Finding refuge in Miami, Sebastian Drexel and his partner, Dillon Gunn, monitored storm updates on their cell phones from a Brickell café.

The two evacuated from Naples ahead of Hurricane Ian.

“Yesterday we saw the reporting from the governor that the time was leave to now,” Drexel said. “Ian was expected to hit Tampa and slowly started to head eastward and we saw they were evacuating zones further south.”

Gunn survived Hurricane Florence and its life-threatening flood waters back in 2018, a life experience which taught him to take storms seriously.

“(We) got rescued by the coast guard it was me, my brother, and my sister and my mom,” Gunn said. “The only thing we left with is a cat, some provisions and clothes the whole town flooded.’

Drexel said he and Gunn wanted to “play it safe.”

But there was a silver lining to having to evacuate Florida’s west coast.

“Oh, we love Miami, we finally got an excuse to come,” Drexel said.


About the Authors
Christina Vazquez headshot

Christina returned to Local 10 in 2019 as a reporter after covering Hurricane Dorian for the station. She is an Edward R. Murrow Award-winning journalist and previously earned an Emmy Award while at WPLG for her investigative consumer protection segment "Call Christina."

Chris Gothner headshot

Chris Gothner joined the Local 10 News team in 2022 as a Digital Journalist.

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