Fort Myers Beach “no longer exists” after that. Hurricane Jan swept through the city last week, causing irreversible damage.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio said in a somber interview with ABC This week yesterday (October 2) that the city “will have to be rebuilt”, Daily Mail reported.
He stated that “Fort Myers Beach no longer exists’ as it was so badly damaged by the storm that it was compared to an ‘atomic bomb’. Of the renovation plans, Rubio added, “It’s going to be something different. It was a piece of old Florida that you cannot take back.’
The hurricane made landfall in parts of southwest Florida on Wednesday last week (October 28), flooding homes and businesses before sweeping through the middle and upper reaches of Florida. Winds of about 150 miles per hour lashed the southwest coast, knocking out power for more than two million people.
But the popular tourist destination of Fort Myers was hit the hardest, with dozens of residents stranded and in need of rescue, while the city was engulfed in floods. Of the 87 reported deaths, 35 were in Florida and another 11 in neighboring counties.
Another 10,000 people remain missing, but many are believed to be safe and unharmed. Operative and rescue work of citizens who are in flooded areas continues.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Dina Criswell, who joined Rubio This week, said: “There is a lot of destruction. Significant damage at impact site on Florida’s west coast.”
She added, “I spent the entire day with Governor DeSantis on Friday and wanted to really hear what his concerns are and what resources he might need to support that. I promised him that we will continue to commit resources to meet the needs, not only for this response and stabilization, but also in the recovery process.”
Damage costs are projected to be between $28 billion and $47 billion, making this the costliest storm to hit Florida since 1992. Skift reports.
The storm was named a Category 4 hurricane and is one of 15 such storms to hit the state. Speaking about the scale of Hurricane Ian, Rubio noted, “I don’t think it’s a comparison, not in Florida.”
