Sheriff’s officials announced that the remains of a man who went missing when Hurricane Ian struck Florida’s Gulf Coast last year had been found in a submerged sailboat.
James “Denny” Hurst, 72, whose remains were discovered on Sunday, was last seen onboard the sailboat “Good Girl” when the category four storm that slammed the area in late September made landfall, according to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Carmine Marceno posted on social media that the yacht was located near Fort Myers Beach’s Matanzas Pass neighborhood on Friday afternoon.
According to investigators, Hurst had informed his family that he intended to wait out the storm aboard the boat.
The remains of 82-year-old Ilonka Knes were discovered by a team cleaning up rubbish in the mangroves, the sheriff reported earlier on Friday.
She had gone missing at the beginning of October.
According to the sheriff, Knes was recognized by authorities using dental data.
Robert Knes, her husband of 81 years, was discovered dead shortly after the storm.
After the hurricane, Hurst and Knes were the only two people still listed as missing in Lee County, according to Marceno.
He said that he hoped this would provide some closure for their families.
The Florida Medical Examiners Commission recorded 145 hurricane-Ian-related deaths in the state on Tuesday before the revelation.
This would bring the sum up to date.
According to authorities, there were also three fatalities in Cuba, one in Virginia, and five in North Carolina.
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