Fort Myers Beach prepares for Idalia exactly 11 months after Hurricane Ian's landfall

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Almost a year ago, Hurricane Ian caused catastrophic damage in Fort Myers Beach. Now, residents are bracing for yet another I-named storm.

Transcript

00:00 to turn our attention over to a city that was affected by another ice storm, Jeff.

00:04 That's right. Not that long ago. And Leslie Hudson joins us from Fort Myers,

00:08 Florida, which was hit by incredibly powerful Hurricane Ian just last year.

00:12 So how is the city preparing for this storm, Leslie?

00:16 Well, I think they're really doing an amazing job. They have really got all

00:22 hands on deck. They are working all day, all night. They will be here well into

00:26 tonight trying to make sure everybody is ready. We were talking to the mayor of

00:30 Fort Myers Beach earlier today, Dan Aller, and he's actually gone to his

00:33 house to prepare for whatever Adalia may bring here. But I've actually got

00:37 Jenny Dexter. She's the communications coordinator here in Fort Myers Beach,

00:41 and she's got a long night ahead of her. So she just issued a press release

00:45 that they now have sandbags for residents that live here along Fort

00:49 Myers Beach. Talk to me a little bit about that and actually shot some video

00:51 if you guys got it just a couple of seconds ago of that of that pile of

00:55 sand that the folks can get here. Yeah, so we have a limited number of

01:00 sandbags and sand or it's kind of a do it yourself, fill it your own situation

01:06 here. We ask that people who are live on the beach or property owners on the

01:10 beach, um, use this sand and they can have 10 bags per household and the bags

01:18 are available from our beach and street enforcement team members. Excuse me.

01:23 I'm getting choked up. No worries. And here on the town, how complex at 25 45

01:30 Sarah Boulevard. What has been some of the biggest challenges that you all

01:35 have faced this go around? I think the concern was, of course, that, uh, maybe

01:39 last year, you know, Ian was so catastrophic and and maybe some people

01:43 under prepared. I've talked to dozens of people today, and I think it is the

01:47 only conversation and the Starbucks and the targets and the shopping malls.

01:51 Everybody's talking about a dog. How do you think Fort Myers Beach is doing

01:54 this year? Um, I think that, you know, one of the challenges is obviously that

02:01 we're still very much in recovery from Hurricane Ian that hit exactly 11 months

02:07 ago today. So there's still a lot of debris. Um, I mean, we've gotten rid of

02:14 most of the debris, but there's still a lot of homes. Excuse me. Yeah, who have,

02:21 um, not, you know, gotten their properties demolished or not, not

02:28 cleaned up their properties. So that's gonna be a challenge if we do get a lot

02:33 of wind. Um, but I think we're doing in our emergency preparation this time

02:39 around. We're doing great. We're hoping that the predictions are correct and

02:46 that it does not come this way. Although we feel great sadness for the people

02:50 who are in in the middle of it, you're gonna be in the eye of it. So

02:54 absolutely. Well, Jenny, thank you so much. I know you guys have so much work

02:58 ahead tonight and and again, folks here are not under mandatory evacuations.

03:02 They're being asked to leave if they want to, if they're in a compromised

03:06 structure or if they're in a mobile home or they just want to get out. It's

03:09 a little bit too close to home since Ian. They're asked to go ahead and just

03:12 had just a few miles east of here to be safe for now. We're reporting live in

03:16 Fort Myers Beach. I'm Leslie Hudson will send it back to you. Thank you so

03:19 much there, Leslie. We appreciate the report and Fort Myers Beach again. What

03:23 a storm that was 11 months ago today and this week. But as we take a look at

03:28 what's going on here, we have Italia. Here is Franklin. We're gonna talk more

03:31 about Franklin at the top of the hour.

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