As Pete Belinda and his wife walked slowly down a street just outside of Fort Myers Beach on Florida’s southwest coast, they each toted a large suitcase.

“That’s all we have left,” Belinda said, shaken and visibly tired.

The city, a quiet spot on the Gulf of Mexico coast, became the epicenter of destruction when Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday.

The couple lived in the basement of their daughter’s house where they moved six months ago, but the storm has left them homeless.

“It’s just upside down, soaking wet, full of mud,” Belinda said.

“We don’t really know what we’re going to do now. We are reaching out to some friends and family to find somewhere to stay for a while because we have nowhere to go.”

Fort Myers Beach is now virtually deserted, traversed only by emergency services vehicles, and the handful of people who have returned to their homes are taking stock of what they lost.

The part of the city hardest hit by Ian, the area closest to the sea on the island of Estero, became a field of ruins.

Police have restricted access for those who don’t live in the neighborhood, but photos taken from a helicopter flight showed the extent of the damage.

Strong winds destroyed the wooden houses in the area – in some places there wasn’t even any rubble, just empty lots where houses once stood.

Rich Gibboni is one of those who lost his home.

“The second floor collapsed from the wind and the first floor was flooded to the second floor,” he said, sounding resigned.

The 50-year-old had gone to another neighborhood in Fort Myers Beach to look for provisions before heading back to Estero Island, where he was staying at a hotel with about 20 other people.

Nearby, vacationer Chris Bills, 72, pulled her hat on as she waited for a bus to pick her and her husband up.

Earlier in the day, an ambulance patrol had given them two hours to collect their belongings and vacate the apartment they had rented near the sea.

The couple traveled to Florida from England to enjoy the warmer weather and hadn’t been worried about hurricane warnings.

“We didn’t think it would be that bad,” said Bills.

“I was very scared. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

In the neighborhood they left behind, the force of the hurricane had left dozens of boats stranded on the streets — some still moored to portions of a pier — and dragged cars into a nearby bay, where they remained afloat.

But Gibboni said he hadn’t given up hope after being destroyed at the hands of Ian.

“We have to survive. It’s the only way,” he said.

“We have to start over. It’s going to take a long time so we just need to get back on our feet.”