Those impacted by the devastating effects of Hurricane Milton begin cleanup efforts. AccuWeather's Ali Reid reports from Fort Myers Beach, Florida, on a busy day of people getting back on their feet.
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00:00Allie, give us an update of what you're seeing and what are the impacts right now as far as that storm surge from Milton?
00:06Right guys, so right now in Fort Myers Beach
00:08We know that overnight we saw about five to six feet of storm surge not nearly as high as what we were
00:14Initially predicting which was around eight to ten feet of storm surge. That is a positive thing for this area
00:20But if you take a look around here, you'll notice the big story this afternoon is gonna be sand and lots of it
00:26You'll see crews just like this moving about the area really getting this place back up onto its feet
00:32Because while we didn't see a ton of structural damage here
00:36There is just a lot of a lot of debris and sand to go along with it
00:40But it really depends where you're at in the area now in Fort Myers proper very different situation there
00:47Right outside of the downtown area. They were dealt with a tornado yesterday
00:51So they had some pretty significant damage even before Hurricane Milton made landfall now with some video that you're seeing on your screen right now
00:59This is as we were driving into
01:01Fort Myers Beach earlier this morning
01:04We were one of the first ones to actually get on the island here to get a better perspective of what it looks like in
01:09This area and as you're driving throughout the area, you'll notice a couple of things again
01:13We mentioned the sand the debris
01:14But also the business is now trying to get up back up on their feet this morning to a lot of them assessing damage
01:20This morning realizing they have a ton of flooding that they're having to deal with this morning and a lot of rebuilding
01:27Unfortunately, this is not something that is uncommon here in this area, right?
01:31We know that Ian was a big issue back in 2022
01:34We know Helene most recently caused a lot of problems and that's been the conversation today
01:39A lot of people in this area saying I don't know. I think Helene actually caused more damage
01:45It depends who you speak to a lot of people saying Helene tends to be the bigger issue
01:50over Milton again
01:52the big problem here in Fort Myers Beach is going to be the fact that there are
01:55Dealing with so much debris and sand pickup today if we can bring you back live. I'd also like to show you this again
02:01Let's just give you the overall feel of the afternoon here. It's a lot of people just like this going around
02:08Cleaning the streets here picking up debris
02:11removing some of the
02:14Structures that they had in place to try and help avoid a lot of that flood damage, too
02:18they did try and prepare as much as possible and
02:21Jeff and Damien, I think the big thing to note here is just the overall preparation this time around
02:28We know that Florida knows what they're doing when it comes to storms like this because they are dealt with these situations time and time again
02:36This time we were talking about it yesterday the overall feel of this storm very different than in past
02:42Most people heeding to those evacuation orders a lot of them coming back checking the damage today a lot of them
02:49Breathing a sigh of relief, but of course still a lot of pickup here in the Fort Myers Beach area