September 29, 2022
While stranded in Miner after RV-breakdown, Southwest Florida couple works to collect items for hurricane victims
MINER, Mo. — As Hurricane Ian was churning Wednesday toward Florida, where it strengthened into a Category 4 storm, a Southwest Florida couple stranded in Missouri after their vehicle broke down decided to help their own while waiting out the storm...
By Leonna Heuring/Standard Democrat
Couple will be at Food Giant on East Malone in Sikeston until 5 p.m. Thursday.
MINER, Mo. — As Hurricane Ian was churning Wednesday toward Florida, where it strengthened into a Category 4 storm, a Southwest Florida couple stranded in Missouri after their vehicle broke down decided to help their own while waiting out the storm.
“God’s got us here,” said Randy Stephens, a musician with Randy Stephens and the Groove Makers out of Placida, Florida, said Wednesday from the parking lot of a hotel in Miner.
On Sunday, Stephens and his wife, Wendi, were traveling in their RV south on Interstate 55 when the transmission went out on their vehicle near Portageville, Missouri. They were able to get their RV into a local shop for repair but were also told it would be at least two weeks before it would be fixed. Local law enforcement gave the couple a ride to Miner, where they are staying at a hotel.
“We’re here for a reason,” Wendi (Scianna) Stephens said, agreeing with her husband. “Our RV kept breaking. We had to get a new master cylinder and then a new front-end put on and then we broke down in Portageville.”
There was no way to get home: no one-way flights, vehicle rides or train rides, she said.
“My husband came back to the hotel and said: ‘The Lord told me to get a U-Haul and we can bring supplies back (to help hurricane victims)’ — so that’s what we’re doing,” Stephens said on Wednesday.
Stephens has worked as a hairstylist for 27 years and said she’s been in touch with one of her clients who is a nurse.
“I was asking her to tell us what to bring. Her first thing she said we’d need are first aid items,” Stephens said.
Along with first aid items, Stephens said donations needed include: adult wipes, baby wipes, non-perishable food, water, cleaning supplies, toiletries, hygiene products, batteries, flashlights, trash bags and tarps.
Supplies can be dropped off at the Stephens’ rental U-Haul truck through 5 p.m. Thursday in the parking lot of Food Giant, 945 E. Malone Ave., in Sikeston. The couple planned to head further south on Friday in hope of receiving more donations along the way back home.
“This started with a month-long honeymoon,” Stephens said Wednesday from the 26-foot U-Haul truck she and her husband rented to take back —hopefully full of supplies — to their church, Fellowship Church of Englewood in Englewood, Florida, to help residents in need.
The couple were married June 11 and set out Aug. 30 on a month-long honeymoon trip in their RV.
“So, we’ve been all over — the Grand Canyon and California,” Stephens said. “Our RV kept breaking down. We kept staying super-positive.”
Stephens said she and her husband knew the hurricane was coming and decided to get home to their loved ones.
“He’s got an elderly mom with dementia; she’s 86,” Stephens said of her husband. “My mom is 77.”
The couple also have children and grandchildren there, and so it’s just stressful, Stephens said.
“The last place, oddly enough, we were supposed to go was Noah’s Ark in Kentucky,” Stephens said. “We said we’re going to cut our vacation short and go home, and we broke down on Interstate 55 south. They said it’s not going to be fixed for a couple weeks so we were kind of stranded anyway.”
Stephens said she’s lived in the same area of Florida for 22 years and has never seen anything to the likes of Hurricane Ian.
“So, at this point, we’re just trying to give it to God because there’s nothing else to do — and this is all we can think of to do,” Stephens said as she prepared to make a sign from a piece of drywall. “… Luckily, our RV here is getting fixed because once it gets a transmission, we’ll probably be living it.”
Stephens said she had someone back home who could put up her hurricane shutters, but they couldn’t find the hardware to secure them so she told them not to worry about.
“The eye (of Hurricane Ian) is going two blocks behind my house,” Stephens said Wednesday “I don’t foresee having a home when I get home — and I don’t care as long as our friends and family can stay safe.”
Hurricane Ian turned streets into rivers and blew down trees as it slammed into southwest Florida on Wednesday with 150 mph winds. Ian’s strength at landfall was Category 4, tying it for the fifth-strongest hurricane, when measured by wind speed, ever to strike the U.S, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
Ian’s center came ashore more than 100 miles south of Tampa and St. Petersburg, sparing the densely populated Tampa Bay area from its first direct hit by a major hurricane since 1921.
The National Hurricane Center said Ian became a tropical storm over land early Thursday and was expected to regain near-hurricane strength after emerging over Atlantic waters near the Kennedy Space Center later in the day, with South Carolina in its sights for a second U.S. landfall.
A stretch of the Gulf Coast remained under ocean water: “Severe and life-threatening storm surge inundation of 8 to 10 feet above ground level along with destructive waves is ongoing along the southwest Florida coastline from Englewood to Bonita Beach, including Charlotte Harbor,” the center said Thursday.
Just after noon Thursday, Stephens said she lost contact with her daughter at 8 p.m. Wednesday.
“I was able to get connected with her this morning,” she said of her daughter. “… Her whole back room of her house is destroyed. The fence is gone, but they’re OK. Her baby is 11 months old and happy as a bug and that’s all that matters.”
Stephens said the eye of Ian went over her house, but she doesn’t know yet what it looks like. But, again, she isn’t worried about it, she said.
Through all of their challenges in the past month and days, the couple have tried to keep a positive attitude.
“You can only do what we can do,” Stephens said. “We’re doing what we can do.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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