That’s exactly what I was thinking, people south of Sarasota were probably thinking it was going further north. At one point it was thought to make landfall at Cedar Key or even further north than that. When Ian stalled and kept jogging East, there wasn’t enough time for those in Naples, Sanibel, Ft. Myers areas to evacuate. Maybe some did, but a lot didn’t.
My family in St. Pete was finally able to evacuate Tuesday afternoon after prepping their office first, then their home for the storm. Ex BIL in Tampa near Bayshore was in mandatory evacuation zone, and didn’t leave until Wednesday morning. (That’s a whole story on its own.)
The point is, that those who thought they were the targets Sunday night and Monday morning didn’t find out until Tuesday evening or later that the storm was maybe going further South, and those who thought they might be out of harm’s way ended up being pretty directly in the path of Ian. It would’ve been dangerous to get on the road on Wednesday for most of them.
We have now made a family pact that if there is a hurricane in the eastern gulf they will get out of town. They have sturdy construction plenty of supplies and hurricane shutters but it’s the aftermath i worry about most for them