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