The ocean raged off the coast of Fort Myers Beach and the wind howled as residents were waking up and assessing the damage Thursday morning.
“Everything is pretty mild, compared to last time," resident Brad Heard said.
The optimism comes from those who live on streets that were spared, like Judd.
"I thought we are surviving so far. We don’t have any water in our house, we have a ground level house so we have it sandbagged. So far, no water up that far," he said. "We were surprised to come to the other side of the street and see how much there was here.”
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HURRICANE HELENE
But others are not so lucky.
When you make your way to Fort Myers Beach, streets are flooded with water. In some areas you are not able to tell the bay from the street, or canals from the road.
But residents like Heard said they’ve fared worse.
“Happy it wasn’t more. Everything isn’t too bad, considering," he said.
Crews were already helping in the cleanup process as of Thursday morning. They were seen specifically in the main area of Fort Myers Beach.
But Mayor Dan Allers said the flooding is only expected to worsen.
“We are urging people to stay home, don’t come onto the island if you don’t need to be here today. You are just creating more of a mess for the people who live and work here and they are going to have to clean up afterwards," he said.
Allers said they are working with FDOT to try and close the bridge to the beach to mitigate how many people are coming in and off the island.
There’s no timeframe for when that could happen.
