It has been almost a year since Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph. As the Category 4 storm crossed the unbridged shark-shaped island en route to southern Punta Gorda, its eyewall came within less than ten miles of Fort Myers’ most iconic public artwork, known to most by her decades-long nickname of Rachel at the Well. The cast concrete sculpture suffered substantial structural and cosmetic damage when the heavy wrought-iron fence that stood behind her crashed down on her lovely head.
In recent weeks, many who pass Rachel during their daily commute have expressed frustration and outrage that no discernible effort has been made to restore the historic artistic landmark. So on Wednesday, a number of community leaders assembled at Rachel’s feet to shoot a video that will educate City Council and the general public on the importance of not just restoring Rachel, but doing the repairs correctly so that the 97-year-old maiden will be around for another 100 years.
Fort Myers Fire Chief and Emergency Director Tracy McMillion is spearheading this effort.
“Our whole goal with this particular video is to get key players, stakeholders that have a relationship with Rachel and to find out what they feel about it, and actually kind of memorialize that onto the videotape to show Council that this is essentially the spirit of what Fort Myers is looking for in re-doing Rachel, not only re-doing her, but restoring her and repairing her the right way so she can last another 98 to some-odd years of just being able to grace our city with her presence,” said McMillion.
Mike Flanders knows a thing or two about restoring and preserving an historic landmark. As President and CEO of the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, he’s had to effect repairs to Thomas Edison and Henry Ford’s winter homes after several tropical events.
“We’ve gone through two hurricanes. We’ve dealt with restoration, and we’ve dealt with trying to put things back together, and that’s a slow process," said Flanders. "I would say everybody should focus on the quality of what we want to do. It’s always longer after a disaster, but the end result is let’s do this right and let’s make it even better perhaps than what it was when it was built brand new.”
Kim Gade lives in Edison Park. The neighborhood has adopted Rachel as their mascot. She too wants Rachel put into even better condition than she was in prior to the storm. She acknowledges that the work must be done in a way that will enable the City to get reimbursed for the work, which could easily exceed $150,000 including the cost of rebuilding the two columns, repairing the retention wall and installing a new wrought iron fence behind the statue.
“Well, it’s FEMA,” said Gade. “So nothing happens fast with FEMA. And the work really does need to get done before more damage happens to it.”
While the Federal Emergency Management Agency is poised to reimburse the City for the cost of repairs, it insists that the restoration performed in a way that will prevent a recurrence of the damage during future storms, which climate experts expect to intensify more frequently in a warmer and wetter atmosphere.
The repairs are complicated. The art conservators will need to lift heavy pieces of cast concrete like an engine block so that they can straighten the statue’s internal metal armature and PVC piping. They will also have to reattach the numerous pieces of skin and delicately-sculpted shift that broke off. And the contractor who rebuilds the columns on either end of the entry must make sure that they are reinforced in a way that will withstand not just Category 4 winds, but the gusts and meso-vortices that typify major hurricanes in the modern age. All of this requires architects, structural engineers and experienced contractors. It takes time to advertise for and put together the right team of experts.
Mayor Kevin Anderson said the city is committed to not only restoring Rachel, but doing the work right.
“Rachel has been a fixture in this community for nearly a hundred years, and I think people really enjoy, as they drive up and down McGregor, seeing her, not just as Rachel but the Spirit of Fort Myers," said Anderson. "And she has sustained numerous storms until Ian. And so I want the people to know that we are committed to not only restoring Rachel to her past elegance, but to restore her in such a way to withstand the storms of the future as well.”
Edison Ford COO, Vice President and Florida Trust for Historic Preservation board member Mike Cosden agreed.
“This is a really important piece of Fort Myers history and there’s nothing else like it in our city," said Cosden. "I mean, you know that the Edison home is right across the street and that Mina Edison … was intimately involved with how this evolved, and today it’s a really key sense of place for the Edison Park neighborhood and the McGregor corridor. So I think there’s not a lot like it in Fort Myers and it’s really important that it’s restored thoughtfully and well so that it’s still here a century from now.”
Flanders underscored the significance of the artwork to Fort Myers and its citizens.
“The city is 135 years old. We have very few landmarks that both qualify as historic and as art. For a city this old, with a lot of history, we have very few historic artistic landmarks," said Flanders. "This is one that at the top of the list, both in its connection with the Edison, Edison Park and so forth, and it should be top priority for restoration. And so I’m looking forward to the restoration beginning, and for it to be completed.”
Chief McMillion would like everyone to focus on the process and end goal, not the timetable.
“Growing up in a home with a mother and grandmother, some of the best meals I had took a long time to prepare. The quality of the rebuild and the repair and the restoration of her is the most important thing, not timetable,” he said.
In this respect, TMAC harkens back to the weeks and months leading up to the sculpture’s unveiling on April 8, 1926.
“Think about how Rachel was put together way back when she was being designed on site, and how long that took, and how Mina Edison was taking flashlights and sneaking and taking looks at her underneath the tarp or whatever it might have been. We can actually have the same type of anticipation of knowing that when this project is done, Rachel, "The Spirit of Fort Myers," will be done appropriately, will be done well, and everyone will be proud of it. Everyone will be proud of it.”
The video will be aired on Monday, September 18th in City Council Chambers. It is Item 1.3 on Council’s agenda, so come on time if you would like to view the finished product. City Council convenes promptly at 4:30 p.m.
MORE INFORMATION
- While known by most as Rachel at the Well, the sculpture’s official name is The Spirit of Fort Myers.
- One of FEMA’s goals in disaster recovery is remediation. This refers to the process of analyzing why a structure failed during a natural disaster and implementing carefully-formulated plans to prevent a recurrence of the damage during future storms or natural events.
- In this vein, it is important to note how and why Rachel was damaged during Hurricane Ian.
- Rachel was intended by the development’s project manager, James D. Newton, as the centerpiece for a stunning, upscale entryway into the Edison Park neighborhood he was building for the Snell Brothers. As early photographs depict, bougainvillea were planted on either side and behind the sculpture in landscaping beds that Newton included in the entry’s design.
- Over the years, the bougainvillea grew to immense proportions. On the Saturday before Ian’s landfall, the bougainvillea’s trunks were more than six inches in diameter. Many of its branches were three to four inches around. The bougainvillea had grown taller than the curved wrought iron fence that stood behind the sculpture and its canopy covered Rachel’s head and shoulders. Many of the bougainvillea’s branches had entwined through and around the fence’s upright metal spires.
- The author has uncovered no information that pinpoints the magnitude of the sustained winds that buffeted Rachel at the Well as Ian made landfall on Cayo Costa on the afternoon of September 28, 2022. At the time of Ian’s landfall, the Operational Land Imager (OSI) on board NOAA’s Landsat 8 satellite measured Ian’s eye at 26 miles in diameter. That brought the eastern or right side of the eyewall within less than ten miles of Rachel. While Ian’s sustained winds at that time were 150 mph, the winds in the eastern or right side of the eyewall would have been at least 159 mph, which includes the storm’s forward momentum. That’s Category 5 strength.
- However, hurricane force winds passing over urban terrain are subject to wind gusts that can be anywhere from 1.3 to 1.65 times greater than the storm’s sustained winds. So even if Ian’s winds where Rachel was located were in the 120 mph vicinity, gusts (namely, a 3-second burst of wind) could have been anywhere from 156 to as high as 198 mph, which is EF3 to EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale for Tornadoes.
- Given the rotation of the eye, it appears that Ian’s winds came at Rachel and her decorative bougainvillea out of the southeast. Whatever their velocity, they took hold of the bougainvillea like the sale on a three-masted schooner and toppled the top-heavy plant.
- The bougainvillea’s entwined branches pulled the wrought iron fence over as well. The heavy metal fence landed on top of Rachel’s head, causing fractures at her neck and breaking and shifting her torso forward at the hip. In the process, pieces of the sculpture’s delicately-crafted surface broke off and littered the water basin at the maiden’s feet and the landscaping bed that surrounds the fountain. At the same time, the bougainvillea’s thorns and branches scraped and gouged the statue’s surface, leaving marks and ground dirt on her head, face, bare skin and the shift that covers her legs.
- During their site inspection, FEMA’s survey crew discovered that the bottom of the wrought iron fence merely sat in a shallow channel in the stucco that had been applied in 1926 to the top of the curved retaining wall behind the sculpture. That track was only secured to the wall with 2 inch bolts, meaning that only an inch of threaded metal penetrated into the concrete. In addition, the wall was made of open-cell concrete block that was neither reinforced nor infilled with concrete. Put simply, the anchors that were used were just not deep or strong enough to withstand the lateral force exerted by the bougainvillea as it caught Ian’s winds.
- The wrought iron fence was also attached to the two columns that stood to either side of Rachel. However, the FEMA site inspectors discovered that above six feet, the columns were hollow, so when the bougainvillea toppled, it pulled the support out of the eastern column and, because of the direction of the winds, the wrought iron fence caused the failure and collapse of the west column above its six-foot base.
- FEMA gets a lot of criticism for the red tape and delays people experience in getting the money they need to help them recover in the aftermath of a storm. In this case, however, FEMA’s concerns for proper remediation are justified. It is not sufficient to merely put everything back together as it was before the storm.
- Knowing the cause of the entry’s failure and the damage that the 97-year old sculpture has sustained, the City has advertised for an architect to design how the columns should be rebuilt and the wrought iron fence installed to prevent a repeat of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Ian.
- It may be a knee-jerk reaction to suggest that some other plant material be used in the landscaping beds around the sculpture, but the problem was not the choice of bougainvillea, but rather that (1) it was allowed to grow to the height and size that it had and (2) its branches had been allowed to entwine with the fence’s upright spires.
- This is neither an attempt to criticize or assign blame. These structures were built in 1926 as a decorative entry and Helmuth von Zengen’s maiden was not envisioned as either a masterpiece or symbol of the City’s spirit and resilience. Prior to the FEMA site inspection, no one realized that the wrought iron fence was only attached to the retaining wall with 2 inch bolts or that the wall wasn’t solid.
- As Mayor Anderson sagely notes, Rachel had weathered many a previous hurricane with little or no damage. In fact, just five months after Rachel’s dedication, this area experienced impacts from the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926, which virtually put an end to the Florida Real Estate Boom. That storm was so strong that it opened Redfish Pass between Captiva and North Captiva Islands. Rachel similarly survived the Fort Lauderdale Hurricane of September 17, 1947 (during which a wind gust topping 120 mph was recorded at the Sanibel Lighthouse), Hurricane Donna on September 10, 1960, the No-Name Storm of June 17-18, 1982, Hurricane Wilma on October 24, 2005 (which caused 208,000 customers to lose electrical service) and the Invest 92L-Hurricane Irma storms that impacted Fort Myers with both high winds and more than 20 inches of rainfall.
- Perhaps Rachel had been lucky; more likely, the culprit was the continued growth and entwining of the bougainvillea that caused the wrought iron fence to topple in Ian’s southwesterly winds.
- The architectural firm of Parker Mudgett has been engaged to draw up building plans for the erection of the columns and the repair of the rest of the structures surrounding the sculpture. Included in the surround is plumbing, the pool pump that propels water through the sculpture and out the maiden’s urn, and electric for lighting. Once plans are prepared and approved, the City will next need to advertise for a building contractor.
- To comply with FEMA’s requirements, the City cannot just use the Miami-based art conservation team (Rosa Lowinger & Associates) that has been maintaining Rachel since 2014. Instead, it must publicly advertise for interested conservators and then evaluate the credentials or qualifications of each conservator or conservation team that responds to the City’s RFQ.
- Once the City receive these responses, it will be necessary for one or more of the interested conservators to schedule and conduct a site inspection so that they can determine not just what needs to be done to restore the sculpture, but whether that work should be conducted on site or in a warehouse some place in town.
- Rachel was crafted as a single piece. The statue, the base or plinth on which she stands and the basin into which the water pours are all one piece. It may or may not be possible to lift and move her as a unit. If not, then the feasibility of severing her from the plinth or basin must be evaluated along with whether or not her severance and transportation will further harm the sculpture given its current fragile state.
- If the work is done on site, measures will need to be taken to secure the site and protect the workers from the elements, including passing traffic, during the course of the conservation.
- In addition, heavy equipment will be needed to lift and stabilize the heavy cast concrete head and torso while the sculpture’s internal metal armature and PVC piping are repaired.
- A number of pieces broke off the statue when the wrought iron fence landed on her. Those have been tagged, photographed, bubble wrapped and secured. Part of Rachel’s restoration will be reattaching those pieces. However, there may be others that were either lost or pulverized. In those instances, the conservation team will need to reconstruct and replicate the missing parts.
- Cleaning and buffing the scrapes and scratches from the sculpture’s surface will also consume a great deal of time and patience on the part of the conservation team.
- The City expects to hire a project manager to oversee restoration of both the sculpture and the surrounding structures. It will be up to that individual or firm to determine if work on the sculpture and surround can be performed simultaneously or separately.
- Given all of the foregoing, restoration of the sculpture and its surround is sure to take months rather than weeks. But it’s the quality of the end result that possesses overriding importance rather than how quickly the repairs can be made.
- Chief Tracy “TMAC” McMillion graduated from Mid-Florida Tech Fire Academy in Central Florida in 1994 and served briefly as a volunteer for Eatonville Fire Rescue in Eatonville, Florida. In 1996, Tracy was hired by the City of Fort Myers Fire Department where he proudly served as a Firefighter/Paramedic until 2003 when he joined a neighboring fire district, Iona McGregor Fire District. Tracy’s advancement was propelled forward when he was promoted to Training Captain in 2014, then Battalion Chief of Training in 2015, and then Division Chief of Training in 2016. Tracy faithfully served in each of these positions. In March of 2019, Tracy rejoined the City of Fort Myers Fire Department as Deputy Fire Chief. Later that that year, in November, he was appointed to Interim Fire Chief, and December, Fire Chief. Chief McMillion has an A.S. Degree in Fire Service Technology, an A.S. Degree in Emergency Medical Technology, a B.S. in Management and a Master’s in Administration. Chief McMillion’s philosophy is simple, live and lead as an example, treat everyone with respect and make every encounter meaningful. Tracy is a dedicated husband, proud father and an engaged grandfather.
- When Hurricane Ian came ashore near Cayo Costa, Florida at 3:05 p.m. EDT with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, it tied the record for the fifth-strongest hurricane to ever strike the United States. It was the strongest hurricane to hit Florida since Michael in 2018. It was also the first Category 4 hurricane to impact Southwest Florida since Charley in 2004.
To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.
Spotlight on the Arts for WGCU is funded in part by Naomi Bloom, Jay & Toshiko Tompkins, and Julie & Phil Wade.