Mercola Headquarters Hit by Hurricane Ian

Double whammy: First our website was attacked, then Ian took direct aim for Cape Coral. It’s been a rough few weeks, but we are not giving up.

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STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • Shortly after our website was successfully attacked and taken down, the Mercola.com headquarters in Cape Coral, Florida, was hit by yet another challenge, Hurricane Ian
  • Our staff resides primarily in Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Naples and surrounding communities, the area of Southwest Florida where Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 — nearly Category 5 — storm
  • Some of our staff and colleagues sheltered in place at our Mercola building during the storm
  • We are grateful that all our employees are safe; however, some staff lost vehicles and others have significant damage to their homes, making them unlivable
  • We need your help now more than ever as we continue to support our employees and community in rebuilding our homes and businesses
  • Be sure you’ve signed up for a free subscription to my Substack so you have access to the vital information we share
  • The Mercola Market store is now back up and running; it’s taken an enormous effort, but our fulfillment centers are still able to ship products. If you need anything from the Mercola Market, please help support us

Shortly after our website was attacked and taken down, the Mercola.com headquarters in Cape Coral, Florida, was hit by yet another challenge, Hurricane Ian. It’s been a rough few weeks, but we’ll make it through stronger than before.

Our staff resides primarily in Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Naples and surrounding communities, the area of Southwest Florida where Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 — nearly Category 5 — storm. Winds of 155 mph were recorded along with a catastrophic storm surge that rose more than 12 feet above ground level.1

Some areas received nearly 16 inches of rainfall, and millions remain cut off from basic necessities like clean drinking water and electricity. Homes were ripped off their foundations and an unknown number of people have been stranded by floodwater and damaged roadways.2 Many are unaccounted for and missing. A press release from the White House described the natural disaster as “likely to rank among the worst in the nation’s history.”3

During the storm, the city of Cape Coral lost 99% of its power,4 and the Sanibel Causeway, a series of bridges that connect Sanibel Island to Florida’s mainland, was destroyed.5 After almost a week, we still had no power and water was only recently restored. More than 100 people in Florida were killed by Hurricane Ian,6 but the official count is likely going to be much higher than what is currently reported.

All Employees Are Safe, but Many Homes Are Devastated

We are grateful that all our Mercola employees are safe. Some of our staff and colleagues sheltered in place at our Mercola.com headquarters during the storm. However, some staff lost vehicles and others have significant damage to their homes, making them unlivable.

One of our employees whose home is currently uninhabitable is a father to two children under age 5, and expecting twins with his wife any day now. Many of our colleagues have also been displaced and are unable to return to their homes. So to say that this storm has been destructive is an understatement. Some of our staff evacuated the area and will return to streets turned to rubble. It’s difficult to take in the complete annihilation of neighborhoods that stood intact just hours before.

The Mercola.com headquarters ran on a generator for a week and has significant damage to the roof. The storm ripped off the building’s solar panels, damaging the roof along with them, so there are leaks throughout the building. It goes without saying that our offices were closed for a full week.

Most importantly, we’re thankful that everyone made it through, and we have continued to support our employees and the community during this horrific event. Sadly, many in the Ft. Myers/Cape Coral area were not as lucky and have lost their lives. The hurricane and the events that preceded it when our website was attacked have taken a tremendous toll. But make no mistake, we will persevere and come out of this stronger than before.

It’s hard to put the events of the last several weeks into words. The Mercola.com website disappeared early Friday morning, September 23, 2022, following months of other assaults, including our bank accounts being closed and credit cards canceled. The cyberattack also destroyed our email servers. All our email accounts were lost, including my primary email of the last 30 years.

We have been planning and preparing for the possibility that someone might eventually succeed in their attempts to take us down. What we couldn’t have planned for was the takedown occurring just days before one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit Florida, triggering what is being described as a once-in-a-500-year flood event.7

We are still running even though our restoration efforts have been further hindered by the hurricane catastrophe. It will take years for Cape Coral and the surrounding communities to rebuild, and our team is still reeling from the disaster.

Still, we will not back down. Our website is temporarily operating through Substack, which will host our content for the first 48 hours free of charge. It is imperative that you sign up for a free subscription to my Substack to receive our daily newsletter. Please also bookmark the website should you not receive our emails.

You can find my Substack website at: TakeControl.Substack.com. This is where we will post regular updates and continue to post our vital content, so please be sure to subscribe to my Substack website or bookmark the page and visit daily.

If you’ve signed up for our newsletter via Gmail — as 50% of our subscribers have — I urge you to switch to ProtonMail instead. Google is censoring your inbox via Gmail, as the delivery rate for Gmail is half that of other email providers. If you’re a subscriber, I strongly suggest you sign up to my Substack with another email account — and cancel your Gmail altogether.

I am certain that at some point in the not-too-distant future Google will stop delivering any of our emails to Gmail accounts. So the time to make the switch is now. In addition to censoring which emails you receive, please realize that Google is also tracking and surveilling every email you send and receive.

ProtonMail is an excellent alternative, as it provides end-to-end encryption to protect your content and other user data. Proton also provides an encrypted calendar, encrypted cloud storage and free VPN. Once Mercola.com is back online, you can then re-subscribe to our newsletter with your ProtonMail.

We Need Your Help More Than Ever Before

We want to thank everyone who has reached out with concerns, well wishes and assistance. Many have also reached out asking how they may assist. The impacts of the past few weeks, from our website being hacked to surviving a Category 4 hurricane, have been unimaginable.

We now need your help more than ever before. The media, senators, federal agencies, attorneys general and Big Tech have all been used by the global cabal to illegally shut down our right to free speech. Just as we were dusting off from the cyberattack that took down our site, we were sidelined again by the storm of the century. We were knocked off our feet again, but we’re already back standing. They won’t win.

If you’d like to help, the Mercola Market store is now up and running. It’s taken an enormous effort, but our fulfillment centers are open and able to ship products. So if you need anything from the Mercola Market, please support us. We need your help as we continue to support our community in rebuilding our homes and businesses.

We also remain committed to empowering you with the truth about health and the global threats that continue to threaten our sovereignty and freedom. The war is heating up, with an end-goal of seizing complete control over the world and implementing tyrannical global slavery. This isn’t new to us. We have fought and won many battles — including breaking through the fog of the COVID-19 pandemic — and are stronger and more enlightened by each one.

The only way they will win is if they silence any and all opposition. We won’t give up the fight, and they won’t succeed in silencing me. As it has always been, information and knowledge are power. We will continue to share information with everyone who wants to hear it. Again, be sure you’ve signed up for a free subscription to my Substack so you have access to the information we share. Right now, it’s not only your health but the future of humanity that is at stake.

Although we’re facing tremendous adversity, backing down is not an option. We have solutions in the works that will prevent these kinds of interruptions from happening again. Now, however, our efforts must focus in the immediacy on assisting our employees and rebuilding our community in the wake of environmental catastrophe.

These challenges will not be our downfall. On the contrary, they will make us stronger. When you stand up to adversity, it strengthens your resiliency, and we’ll come out more powerful than ever before.

https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/mercola-headquarters-hit-by-hurricane-ian

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