Iona
Residents of Iona hope life can return to normal.
It’s a stone’s throw from areas devastated by Hurricane Ian, such as Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach.
Iona didn’t suffer much damage, but it’s still dealing with the aftermath of the storm surge and debris.
One man was slightly injured, and a month after the storm, there is still no air conditioning.
Despite this, he still feels lucky to have a home.
Sonny Sammartino and his wife have lived in the Iona home for many years and love it.
But we also want to feel loved by our response team.
Sammartino sees Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach getting all the attention and knows it will take time to clean up, but there is also debris in the neighborhood.
He wants to see Iona help.
“When I see things like that, I get depressed,” says Sammartino.
Sammartino knows that a pile of street debris can make things worse. At his friend’s house across McGregor Boulevard, the stakes are so high that they completely block the house.
But he wants normalcy.
“Fortunately, I have window shutters, and this is good publicity for shutters, as we have avoided many problems,” he said.
His air conditioner was placed sideways on the door.
“We are older, my wife and I are in our 80s, and it was a bad thing that there was no air conditioning,” he said.
His roof lost some shingles, but not enough to leak.
“So it’s one down on the list of people to help,” he said.
He just wants help, but sees it go to more serious areas of damage and doesn’t want to be forgotten.
“We want fair help,” he said. “It’s not that we want what we don’t deserve.”
A county spokesperson ensures that the WINK News people out there have not been forgotten.
They have already removed tens of thousands of cubic yards of debris. They know there is more and the truck will pass by again.
