Monday, Sept. 22 — it is the third anniversary of a day many Southwest Floridians would rather forget.
On this day in 2022, Hurricane Ian assaulted the Southwest Florida coast, demolishing homes and up-ending lives.
And while great progress has been made in recovery, there are still signs of that dreadful day in Lee County.
“Horrible, horrible day. A lot of wind and a lot of water and a lot of people in places they didn’t want to be," said Cona Cody. He was living near Fort Myers Beach three years ago.
“I was upstairs in my house and next thing I knew my car was floating away and there were fishes in my yard,” he said.
After the hurricane, Cody moved to Lehigh Acres where signs of Ian were sparse. Now he’s in Harlem Heights. And three years later there are still signs of the deadly and destructive storm.
Near Cody’s new place on School Street are two homes abandoned after the storm. At one of them, the roof is caved in and weeds rise well past first floor windows.
“They need to get rid of these eyesores,” he said.
The homes on School Street are expected to be bulldozed soon, now that Lee County awarded a LaBelle contractor $350,000 to raze the homes and 26 other unsafe properties throughout unincorporated Lee County.
That’s good news to Cody, who says he’d really like to stop being reminded of that terrible day.
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