This week marks six months since Hurricane Milton churned across the Gulf and sent dangerous weather across our coast. While the center of the storm missed us to the north, the outer bands dropped numerous tornadoes across Florida.
An EF-2 tornado tore through parts of Fort Myers and Lee County on October 9, 2024. It’s an experience that still haunts the people who lived through it.
Caption: Tornado track from Hurricane Milton’s outer band
“I still can acutely dig up that feeling of, oh, my gosh, this might be it. This might be the end,” shared Fort Myers resident, Rachel Bepko. Now, we’re tracking recovery six months after the storm, as neighbors and community leaders get ready for the next hurricane season.
Caption: Rachel Bepko
In the neighborhoods between McGregor Boulevard and U.S. 41, the memory of Milton is still fresh in neighbors’ minds.
“Probably a week ago, I started having nightmares about it,” Bepko said. “I remember the feeling of panic.” You might remember Bepko. We interviewed her live the day Milton dropped a tornado in her part of Fort Myers near Orangewood Elementary School.
“I only knew to take cover because of you guys,” Bepko told us the day of the storm. The tornado damaged a shed in her backyard. Just 400 feet away, it tore the roof off an apartment building.
Caption: Apartment building damaged by tornado still has blue tarp on roof six months after storm
Nearly six months later, a blue tarp covers that apartment building. Bepko’s shed has been rebuilt stronger than before. “Our family was okay. Look at every disaster as an opportunity to rebuild,” Bepko added.
Florida’s so-called “hurricane birds” are back in the neighborhood where so much debris had to be cleared.
Peter Bieniek is the Fort Myers Director of Public Works. I asked him how much debris had to be removed from the city limits after Milton. “So 51,599 cubic yards of material equates to about eight football fields. (That’s) full-length goal post a goal post, full width three foot deep,” Bieniek explained.
Caption: Peter Bieniek tells Channing Frampton how much debris was removed following Hurricane Milton in the City of Fort Myers
That’s a fraction of the amount collected after Hurricane Ian in 2022. Milton presented its own unique challenges because of the tornado damage. Bieniek, too, remembers the moments we were tracking a twister in the heart of his community. “When we realized one touched down near us, it's like, oh wow,” Bieniek added.
Caption: Peter Bieniek is the Fort Myers Director of Public Works
The tornadic winds struck neighborhoods across the Caloosahatchee that day too.
“I gathered my family. We got in the laundry room together, which was the interior most room of our house. We shut the door and we heard the winds pick up,” Lee County Commissioner Brian Hamman said. “We heard this loud rush of winds go over the house.”
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Commissioner Hamman also found himself taking shelter from the storm. “You know, I've lived here my entire life, and I'd never seen a hurricane spawn that many tornadoes,” Hamman added. His home security camera captured the dangerous winds whipping by his home.
Water and wind from Milton’s outer bands led to tons of damage across Lee County too. “I think, unfortunately, we've had way too much practice with responding to hurricanes,” Hamman said.
Caption: Commissioner Brian Hamman speaks with Channing Frampton about Hurricane Milton
I checked with Lee County. Cleanup crews removed 577,201 cubic yards of debris from our neighborhoods after the storm. The county also said it took 15,805 loads to get the job done.
Lee County also confirmed 274 intersections in the county sustained damage under $5,000. All signal repairs have been made to the 274 intersections. The county is awaiting the delivery of about a dozen overhead street name signs. On top of that, the county said ten intersections sustained damages more than $5,000. Three are repaired. Three are waiting for delivery of overhead street name signs. Three are scheduled for permanent repairs by the first week in May. Temporary repairs are in place at the remaining intersection awaiting state and federal funding to replace the signal cabinet.
GULF COAST METEOROLOGIST ROB DUNS EXPLAINS THE FINAL REPORT ON MILTON:
“I think you can see our response has been very quick, but we can't discount our neighbors who are still working on cleaning up their homes out,” Hamman said.
While neighbors up and down the Gulf Coast work to move on from Milton, Bepko says that storm is ultimately what brought her Fort Myers neighborhood closer together. “We've become this resilient community that can overcome unexpected, exponentially hard, times. And we emerge stronger and better and kinder to one another. And that makes me feel proud of where I live,” Bepko concluded.
Credit: Rachel Bepko speaks with Channing Frampton
The good news is there will never be a Hurricane Milton in the Atlantic Basin again. The World Meteorological Organization announced Beryl, Helene and Milton are retired as hurricane names.
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