It was one of the first of what became a swarm of Hurricane Ian rumors: The Sanibel Lighthouse has toppled.

Turns out, it was a half-truth: The house part is gone, but the light remains. Hurricane Ian barged onto the island a Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds and an 8-to-15-foot storm surge Wednesday.

Since 1884 what’s known as the lighthouse — the giant beacon on metal legs and the adjacent keeper’s quarters on the eastern tip of the island — has been a beloved landmark.

Ian destroyed the white-painted wooden building where the caretakers lived until 1949, when the Coast Guard automated the light.

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Though it’s still standing, the illuminated lens-bearing metal structure is in danger of collapse, according to the online journal, Lighthouse Digest.

After posting a photo of framework Friday, the publication noted, “Look closely and you will notice that the bottom of one of the support legs is gone, and erosion under the other legs puts the lighthouse in a precarious position. There is also some other minor damage to the tower.“

What will happen with the potentially dangerous light remains an open question; calls and emails to Sanibel officials were not immediately returned.

Officials are operating out of Crowne Plaza in Fort Myers and are organizing rescue and recovery efforts for the island.

One who cares deeply about the historic site is LaBelle resident Margaret England, daughter of the last light housekeeper Bob England. He moved to the island with his wife Mae and their then-month-old daughter, Margaret England in 1946.

“It was their first assignment,” said Margaret, who now lives in Hendry County. “It was like a dream to live in a lighthouse as newlyweds ... I'm heartbroken."

But it didn’t last. The U.S Coast Guard was so spooked by the risk of storms, it stopped staffing the post three years later.

"We had two back-to-back hurricanes in 1947, so in 1949, the Coast Guard decided it was too dangerous for families to live there," Mae England told The News-Press in 2000. "The second hurricane washed the stairs to the lighthouse away, knocked down the lookout tower and washed out the deck, and the Coast Guard discontinued it as a manned station."

England retired from the Coast Guard on Nov. 1, 1961, and the family returned to Fort Myers. Margaret retired as a media specialist at LaBelle Elementary School and now is active with Hendry-Glades Audubon. Though she lives inland now, she spent many vacations on Sanibel and has a rich collection of photos and memories.

Seventy-five years later, Ian finished the buildings off.

Although Mae England was 8 months pregnant during that second hurricane, neither she nor her husband — both Florida natives — considered evacuating for the storms.

"We weren't scared," she said. "You just batten down the hatches, kid. I'm an old Florida cracker. You just stay in the house, and if you have some food, some light and some water, you'll be all right."

Margaret has fond memories of island life. Back when the island could only be reached by boat or ferry and the population was about 100, the isolated community was like a big family."

"There was Bailey's store. That was THE store. There was a cafe — Andy's — and we went there and had parties. When there was a holiday or somebody had a birthday, somebody always had a party, and everybody was invited. We made clam chowder and coquina chowder. We cut swamp cabbage and made slaw,” recalled Mae, who died in 2005. "The only thing that was difficult was the fact that we had no medical care, and the roads were bad. And there wasn't but one freshwater well on the island. We had a water cart, and we'd go fill it at the well and take it to the lighthouse. We used gallon jugs to take it into the dwellings and pumped it into a cistern so we could flush the toilets. But we didn't think of these things as hardships."