Heather O'Brien’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the two weeks since Hurricane Ian hit.

O’Brien, who along husband Capt. Pat O'Brien has owned the Fort Myers Sea Tow franchise since 1996, already has responded to “hundreds” of situations where boats were sunk or displaced or need to be recovered because of the storm. 

And that number pales in comparison to what’s ahead.

“It just doesn’t stop,” she said. “For our area, (the calls) keep coming. Right now, it’s at five or six thousand in the queue and we expect a lot more.

“And this is everyone, it’s going to take months to clean up. We’re not even going to have a season. We’re going to be overwhelmed for the next six months.”

Related:40 people displaced after city shuts down Fort Myers Yacht Basin

And:Boats of all kinds litter neighborhoods in wake of Ian

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Between the winds of the Category 4 hurricane and the unprecedented storm surge to Southwest Florida, thousands of boats were sunk or ended up on dry land, sea walls or even on top of other boats or even in buildings.

It’s not like Southwest Florida hadn’t been impacted by hurricanes before, but Ian was different, and the ramifications were different for everyone — including the boating community.

“(Hurricane) Irma was different because Irma pulled the water out,” said Austin Peterson, general manager of Stokes Marine in Fort Myers. “This was storm surge. With Irma, we had a bunch of sea walls that fell over that was the big problem at that point because there was no water in these canals, and this is the opposite of what we had. I don’t think anyone could have been prepared for what was coming.”

Many clearly weren’t prepared, whether it was the changing track of Hurricane Ian that appeared to be headed for the Tampa area before shifting toward Southwest Florida, or simply being unaware of proper protocols.

“In a Category 4 hurricane, If the boat could be moved you absolutely should move it out of the water,” said Liz Bello-Matthews, public information officer for Fort Myers. “No one did that. No one pulled their boat out of the water. … The hurricane switched paths and came straight for us.  And we had about half a day, so many older people didn’t even have a chance to react. I know lots of people who didn’t get to put up hurricane (shutters) up.”

With so many boats under or out of the water, marine companies have found themselves in desperate demand.

“It’s way more than we can handle,” Peterson said. “In our business, right now prior to today, we had a significant backlog anyway. We’ve been incredibly busy with customers that have signed up for new boat lifts and docks and sea walls prior to Hurricane Ian. Most of those people have stuck with us even though potentially there’s been some significant damage to their properties, they want to stay on the list. We have all these customers that right now the emergency effort is on, ‘Hey, I need my boat out of the water, it’s blocking the canal, or it's in somebody’s back yard or it's on top of another boat. It’s more than we can accommodate.”

Moving boats from places they shouldn’t be isn’t an easy task and each situation is unique. Sometimes, it may only take an hour for a smaller boat. Larger boats take more time and more equipment — and doing things quickly isn’t always the best scenario.

“A lot of times, these boats need special equipment, cranes,” O’Brien said. “We’re very diligent to make sure to do whatever’s best and try to save the boat. We’re not just going to drag it out of there.

“You can’t rush these things. Everybody is wanting everything done right this second and it can’t be done.”

Boat insurance can cover the cost of boat removal or salvage. But just like with a home or car, the process can be slow and tedious.

“The way that it works when you have private property like that deposited in a public area, you have to go through the same steps if have damages in house,” Bello-Matthews said. “They have to put through insurance claims. As a city, we can’t just remove them. We have to work with the property owner, who has to put in an insurance claim, work with FEMA and then either release it to the city or the insurance company to provide the removal or the funding. It’s actually really complex. This is the first time it’s ever happened in Fort Myers.”

Moving or salvaging can get expensive in a hurry and much of it depends on what the boat needs.

Prices range from $150 per foot to as high as $400 per foot, depending on what equipment is required to get the job done.

“There are a lot of people starting at $350 going up to $550,” O'Brien’ said. “I don’t want to say ‘taking advantage’ but you have to be careful so you know when it’s done and it’s not done right, you know local people are going to take care of you.

Bello-Matthews said it likely will be “over a month” before the boats are removed from Centennial Park. The city still is in the process of procuring bids for the clean up, so she was unsure of what the cost would be.

“It’s going to be a lot,” Bello-Matthews said. “There’s no company we normally work with because we’ve never had to do this before."