The northbound lanes of the Edison Bridge are open Tuesday despite massive flooding over the weekend.
Monday afternoon, FMPD was forced to shut down the lanes for more than three hours as the intersection at Evans Avenue and First Street was covered in at least a foot of water.
Tuesday, the barricades and sandbags drivers saw blocking Evans Avenue are off to the side. Water receded from an unusually high tide just before 7 p.m. Monday. Before that, drivers were forced to travel via Palm Beach Blvd. to I75 to take the Midpoint Bridge over to Cape Coral.
Tiffanie Bragg, of Lehigh Acres, said it took her over two hours to get to North Fort Myers.
"The traffic was horrible. Everybody was cussing. Everybody was honking their horns and cut us off. We almost got into several wrecks," she said. "And it's just crazy that you think with everything being the way it was, that everybody would have patience for everybody else because there was no way we could go anywhere. I understand we had a tropical storm, but everybody's got to be patient."
Downtown is no stranger to flooding. We see it all the time. The City of Fort Myers Public Works Director said yesterday's high levels were thanks to several factors.
"Yesterday we had an abnormal tide, mostly because you had wind coming in, pushing water from outside. It was 2.3ft above normal. Okay. So, it fills the pipes. In actuality, in this case, it actually was bringing water up out of the pipes. Okay. So, you had flooding from just coming from what was coming in other. Then you add on top of it a heavy rain," Pete Bieniek explained.
They had to close the road for safety.
"People drive in it. The water is running fast. It'll take a car away. If a person tries to get out of the car. Then you have a rescue situation, you know, and if the person goes into the vehicle too fast, it'll actually blow an engine and they'll be stalled in it too," Bieniek said.
The city said they are talking to FDOT, who maintains the road, to see what they can do about the issue, but obviously it's not an overnight fix.
FDOT told us:
"There are no plans at this time to replace the Edison Bridge. Having said that, the area in question is an intersection that is close to but not part of the bridge. The flooding that occurred at the intersection of Park Avenue and First Street during Tropical Storm Debby was caused by both rain and tidal flooding. The peak stage of the flooding was 3.54 feet which occurred on 8/4 around 5pm from storm surge from Hurricane Debby. The stage remained high until late yesterday afternoon (8/5). The roadway elevations in this area are at approximately 2.5 feet which is why the roads were inundated. Once the Caloosahatchee River receded, the roadway was cleared. The drainage system did its’ job, though it was overburdened."