Photo Illustration by Luis Rendon/Photos by Peter Lilienthal
Just hours after the eye of Hurricane Ian passed over Pine Island off Florida’s southwest coast on Wednesday, Peter Lilienthal was already on the move.
Having stayed through the storm—the most brutal of the 15 previous hurricanes he’s weathered—he knew this barrier island of 9,000 would soon be powerless and cut off from the mainland. So he embarked on a mission to find food before it spoiled, and serve it to his hardest hit neighbors.
“We were getting permission from everyone we could, asking if we could go in and raid their kitchens,” said Lilienthal, whose day job is running a food club on the island. “At one spot, we had to crawl through a doggy door to get in and get food out.”