Island communities in Lee County, Fla., endured another bruising overnight — almost two years to the day after Hurricane Ian killed dozens of people in the county and devastated Fort Myers Beach.
Even though Hurricane Helene made landfall hundreds of miles to the north, its storm surge inundated roads and gushed into buildings in Fort Myers Beach, which sits on a barrier island on the southwest Gulf Coast. Many of the damaged buildings were newly renovated or still in the process of being repaired.
“It’s just a mess,” said Becki Weber of Fort Myers Beach, who awoke to both storm water and sewage infiltrating her house. “I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad as it is.”
She had restored her waterfront home following Hurricane Ian and is looking at needing significant repair work all over again.
“We’re back to square one,” she said. “At least this time we saved some of our clothes.”
This is the third storm since Ian to cause damage along Florida’s southwest Gulf Coast, said Mayor Dan Allers of Fort Myers Beach, and each one hampers recovery. Helene, he said, created as much mess as Hurricanes Debby and Idalia, which hit this August and last August, combined. Storm surge was recorded at about six feet, and it sand mounds as high as three feet along Estero Boulevard, the main road spanning the seven-mile island.
City crews planned to spend the next several days clearing roads. A Hurricane Ian “Remembrance and Resiliency Ceremony” that was scheduled for Saturday was canceled as the town once again focuses on recovery. Mr. Allers said he’s also looking into sewage problems, which residents from two areas of the island had reported.
“It feels like whenever you start making good momentum, you’re pushed backward,” he lamented. Even so, he said, the damage was nowhere near that from Hurricane Ian, which swept homes and businesses out to sea.
There were no evacuation orders issued in Lee County, as the predicted surge was not life-threatening. Still, Ms. Weber said many of her neighbors left out of precaution, the harrowing memories of drownings still fresh. Most Fort Myers Beach businesses operating out of temporary structures such as trailers and food trucks similarly relocated, Mr. Allers said.
These operations, remnants of Hurricane Ian, are still common in town, as are RVs parked on residential lots as people await completion of their homes.
Sanibel Island, nearby, experienced similar storm surge from Helene, according to Eric Jackson, the public information officer.
“We were expected to get five feet of storm surge, and we got every bit of that in some places,” Mr. Jackson said. As of midmorning, the Sanibel Causeway bridges were open for outbound traffic, but no one was allowed onto the island except for emergency and utility workers.
Charles Sobczak said he was grateful that his house, built on an elevated mound on Sanibel, was high enough to avoid flooding.
“Our street right now is a river,” he said, as he prepared to slosh through tea-colored water to bring fans to help dry out a less-fortunate neighbor’s house. She’d just finished her renovations, Mr. Sobczak said. “It’s nasty. It’s just plain, old-fashioned nasty.”
Another resident of Sanibel Island, Calli Johnson, spent her morning filing a flood insurance claim. About a foot of water infiltrated her ground-level home. This will be her third major renovation.
“These things happen, and we’re lucky to have a wonderful community to rally around us and get back on our feet,” she said.
Ms. Johnson’s family owns Bailey’s General Store, the oldest business on the island, dating back to 1899. They leveled their previous store after Hurricane Ian and recently unveiled renderings for a new complex. It will be elevated, and they are taking other storm resilience measures with the construction.
“It couldn’t be more clear to us that we’re doing the right thing,” she said.
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