NORTH FORT MYERS, FL — There is still a lot of work to be done to clean up after Hurricane Ian, but now some residents of North Fort Myers say that a mound of moldy, rotting debris outside their homes is holding them back. They say it can make you sick.
It’s happening on Sunrise Drive in North Fort Myers, an area devastated and flooded by Hurricane Ian.
It’s been 30 days since the storm, but many fear it will leave soggy, moldy debris piled up, smell bad in the neighborhood, and make people sick.
Sunrise resident Cynthia Ricini said the mountain only grew in the days after the storm passed.
“This has had to take everything out of the house for the 30 years we’ve lived here. On the street, everything had to be revealed,” Ricini said.
After a 3-foot storm surge and a major cleanup, she and her husband, Joe, are left with a 7-foot-tall pile of waterlogged debris.
“You’re asking me to get you out of the house as soon as possible, but you left it like this for us, so what’s really the difference,” she said.
Their soggy stuff is growing mold and other nasties, and she says she has to smell it every day. I’m saying
“So it’s like you can’t breathe properly and you’re constantly smelling in your throat or nose,” she said.
On Friday, Lee County announced that more debris removal trucks are on the way and that residents can see when the trucks will be in their neighborhoods.
