Okeechobee County, FL — WPTV is reviewing Okeechobee County’s efforts to clean up the chaos left by Hurricane Ian.
Five days after the storm’s effects, electricity was back on to almost all consumers, and decontamination work has progressed significantly.
The good news is that some residents who feared a cleanup have actually made great progress.
Stacking up fallen branches and debris, Amy Williamson began cleaning her home Monday in the mobile home community of Journey’s End, north of Lake Okeechobee.
Williamson is in town for the first time since the winds of Hurricane Ian blew hard.
“We stopped the car, took a break, and came back, trying to clean up the yard,” Williamson said.
We didn’t know exactly what she would be pulled into, but it was a big surprise considering what our neighbors went through, and multiple people lost their patios.
Frank Garrison has completely lost his glass sunroom.
“Years of storms, that’s for sure,” said Garrison.
But there was some help cleaning up this mess.
“Some guy, I think it was just him and his wife picking up aluminum, and he stopped and saw we were putting some stuff down here,” Garrison said. rice field.
Over the past five days or so, Garrison has been slowly scraping the pickup and is now waiting for the sunroom to be repaired.
However, the power is on and the local power guys are working on powering up the rest of the outage.
Last time it was reported less than 300, WPTV went out in some areas where blackouts were reported, but power was restored.
This is the final big step for Okeechobee County to finish cleaning up Hurricane Ian.
WPTV is also monitoring what happens to lake levels following Hurricane Ian and the sinking of water from northern communities, but so far it has risen less than a foot above pre-storm levels. .
