📜 At a glance
- Earliest storm covered
- October 1910 — hurricane linked to the legendary killing of outlaw Edgar "Bloody" Watson in the Ten Thousand Islands
- Benchmark storm
- Hurricane Donna, 1960 — Category 4 landfall near Naples on September 10
- Modern direct hit
- Hurricane Irma, 2017 — second Florida landfall, also on September 10, centered on Marco Island
- Most recent
- Hurricane Ian, 2022 — toppled the Cape Romano dome houses and destroyed most of the Naples Pier
- Best storm shield
- The Ten Thousand Islands’ mangrove archipelago — absorbs surge and wind before it reaches the mainland
- How to see it
- Storm ruins like the domes are reachable only by boat — no road gets you there
The Timeline: Four Storms That Explain This Coast
Southwest Florida’s coastline is not static. Every barrier island, pass and sandbar between Marco Island and the Ten Thousand Islands has been reshaped by weather at least once in the last century, and four storms did more of that reshaping than any dredge or developer ever did. An October hurricane in 1910 set off a chain of events that still gets told around Chokoloskee docks. Hurricane Donna flattened Everglades City and Goodland in 1960 and became the yardstick every Southwest Florida storm gets measured against. Hurricane Irma came ashore directly on Marco Island in 2017. And Hurricane Ian, in 2022, delivered the most recent — and most visible — blow, toppling the Cape Romano dome houses into the surf and destroying most of the Naples Pier. Here is how each one left its mark, and why the mangrove islands you will cruise past on a shelling tour are the reason this coast keeps bouncing back.
| Storm | Year | Category at Landfall | What It Left Behind |
|---|---|---|---|
| The October Hurricane | 1910 | Unnamed (pre-naming era) | Storm floodwaters tied to the legendary Watson killing at Chokoloskee |
| Hurricane Donna | 1960 | Category 4 | Flattened Everglades City & Goodland; reshaped Ten Thousand Islands channels |
| Hurricane Irma | 2017 | Category 3 (2nd Florida landfall) | Direct hit on Marco Island; heavy surge flooding in Old Marco & Naples |
| Hurricane Ian | 2022 | Category 4 | Toppled the Cape Romano dome houses; destroyed most of the Naples Pier |
October 1910: The Storm Behind the Watson Killing
Long before storms got names, an October 1910 hurricane tore through the Ten Thousand Islands and set off one of South Florida’s most enduring true-crime legends. Edgar "Bloody" Watson farmed sugar cane on a remote homestead at Chatham Bend, deep in the mangrove backcountry southeast of Chokoloskee, and had a reputation that outran him wherever he went. According to the well-documented local account — later mythologized in Peter Matthiessen’s novel Killing Mister Watson — storm floodwaters that October are said to have exposed the remains of one of Watson’s hired hands near his property. When Watson came into Chokoloskee by boat days after the storm, a group of armed residents confronted him on the town dock. He was shot and killed on October 24, 1910. The story has been retold, reprinted and argued over for more than a century, and it is still one of the first things longtime locals mention when you ask about the Ten Thousand Islands’ wilder days. You cannot visit Chatham Bend by land — Watson’s old homestead sits deep in the Ten Thousand Islands backcountry, reachable only by water, which is exactly how the story unfolded in the first place.
Hurricane Donna (1960): The Benchmark Storm
If you want Southwest Florida old-timers to go quiet and nod, ask about Hurricane Donna. It came ashore as a major hurricane near Naples on September 10, 1960, after tracking up through the Ten Thousand Islands, and it is still the storm every modern hurricane in this region gets measured against. Donna flattened Everglades City and hammered Goodland and Chokoloskee, tearing apart docks, fish houses and the clam-canning operations that had powered this coast’s economy for decades. Storm surge pushed boats into the mangroves and reshaped some of the same passes between the barrier islands that our captains run today through the Ten Thousand Islands. For a region that had barely recovered from earlier storms and was just beginning to grow, Donna was a gut check — proof that no matter how much developers were building on Marco Island at the time, the Gulf still made the rules. Six decades later, Donna remains the storm that longtime Everglades City and Goodland families use as the measuring stick for every one that has come since, Irma and Ian included.
Hurricane Irma (2017): A Direct Hit on Marco Island
Fifty-seven years to the day after Donna, Hurricane Irma made its second Florida landfall almost on top of Marco Island on September 10, 2017, as a strong Category 3 storm. Nobody planned that date lining up — it is just the kind of detail that makes this coast’s storm history feel like it is talking to itself. Irma pushed heavy surge into Old Marco and low-lying stretches of Naples, snapped trees across the island, and knocked out power for days, though the barrier islands and mangrove buffer between Marco and the open Gulf took the worst of the wave energy before it ever reached downtown. For the deeper, storm-by-storm breakdown of what Irma did to Marco Island and how the community rebuilt, our full Hurricane Irma history page walks through it, and our Hurricane Donna page covers the storm Irma got compared to all over again.
Hurricane Ian (2022): The Domes, the Pier, and the Modern Reckoning
Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa on September 28, 2022, as a high-end Category 4 storm, and even though its worst surge hit Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel to the north, Naples and Marco Island did not escape it. Naples saw major surge flooding downtown, and Ian destroyed most of the Naples Pier, tearing away the roofed pavilion at its end and much of the decking — a loss that made national news and became shorthand for how hard this stretch of coast got hit. Offshore, Ian delivered the finishing blow to the Cape Romano dome houses, the six connected domes built in the early 1980s on what was then dry land at the tip of Cape Romano. Decades of erosion had already pulled the domes into the surf and left them tilting long before Ian ever formed; the storm toppled several of them the rest of the way, leaving the half-submerged ruins you see today rising straight out of open water. They are one of the most photographed sights on the Ten Thousand Islands coast, and you can only reach them by boat — there is no road, no parking lot, nothing but Gulf between you and them. Our Cape Romano timeline traces the domes from dry-land build to today’s ruins, and our Cape Romano dome houses page covers what you will actually see out there now.
Why Mangrove Islands Are This Coast’s Storm Shield
Every one of these storms proves the same point: the Ten Thousand Islands’ tangle of mangrove islands is a big reason Marco Island and Naples are not rebuilding from scratch after every hurricane season. Mangrove root systems — the reddish tangle of prop roots crowding the shoreline on nearly every backcountry run — absorb wave energy and slow storm surge before it ever reaches the mainland, while the dense canopy helps break up wind. Coastal scientists have documented this buffering effect across the Ten Thousand Islands and the Rookery Bay reserve for decades, and it is a big part of why this stretch of coast has stayed wild instead of getting bulkheaded and paved like so much of Florida’s coastline. It is also why our captains take the mangrove backcountry seriously on every trip out — those islands are not just scenery, they are infrastructure. The same channels and passes that Donna, Irma and Ian all reshaped are still doing their job today, quietly taking the brunt of the next storm before it ever reaches the dock.