Captiva tourists make the most of power outage

CAPTIVA ISLAND, Fla. – Captiva Island is back to normal after a massive power outage, Monday night. Tourists on the island say while the outage wasn’t ideal, it made their vacation that much more memorable.

The Lee County Sheriff’s Office arrested Macie Kasprzycki, after he slammed his car into a cement pole on Captiva Road instantly knocking out the power to much of the island.

“This was kind like wham all of a sudden the power is out,” says president and CEO of Tween Waters Inn Tony Lapi.

According to one family, Kasprzycki helped their son just before the crash. The driver was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. He has since bonded out.

“For just meeting somebody he seemed like a pretty honest, good person. But he could have played his cards differently.”

The wreck left hundreds of people stranded when the only road into and of of the island was shutdown. Cars lined the roads as crews raced to restore power.

Vacationers tell WINK news, they tried to make the most of it.

“It was kind of pleasant at first because we thought great excuse to get unplugged to kind of connect with nature, connect with each other but then as i was sleeping i started having nightmares about all the food going bad in the fridge,” says Kerith Elfstrum.  “We went out and looked at the beautiful stars and then we went to sleep early… Earlier than normal,” says Greg Elfstrum.

A popular restaurant, RC Otters was in the middle of their dinner rush when the power went out. The assistant manager says they finished serving people who were already seated but had to turn other customers away.