Flooding concerns on First Street in Fort Myers have residents seeking answers.<\/p>\n
The area at the base of the Edison Bridge frequently floods, particularly during storms, leaving residents like Sandra Sprague worried.<\/p>\n
Sprague, who lives in the Edison Condos, shared her experiences with WINK News at a recent WINK Listens event.<\/p>\n
“Every, every time it does that, I’m looking to see how close it’s coming to my door,” said Sprague.<\/p>\n
Her unit flooded during Hurricane Ian.<\/p>\n
“I’m on the first floor in the front of the building, so I got the brunt of it, so I had like, three and a half feet of water in my place,” she said.<\/p>\n
Fort Myers police have had to shut down the road at the base of the Edison Bridge multiple times due to flooding, including during Hurricane Helene in September 2024.<\/p>\n
“I don’t see any action as far as anybody offering any solutions or even saying they’re looking for a solution,” Sprague said.<\/p>\n
WINK News reached out to Fort Myers Mayor Kevin Anderson to address these concerns.<\/p>\n
Mayor Anderson explained that the flooding is due to the area’s low elevation and the saturation of the ground during heavy rain.<\/p>\n
“There’s no place for the water to go, and there’s a high tide; it’s going to sit there, unfortunately,” said Anderson.<\/p>\n
Anderson said city workers frequently check the drainage systems to ensure they are clear and operational, especially during hurricane season.<\/p>\n
“Right now it’s just a matter of keeping the drainage routes clear and ensuring that they’re adequate, and that’s what we’re working with them on,” Anderson said.<\/p>\n
The mayor said the city is collaborating with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), which owns First Street, to find a solution.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for FDOT said while there are ongoing discussions with the city to address the drainage issue, there are no specific plans in place for a solution at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flooding concerns on First Street in Fort Myers have residents seeking answers. The area at the base of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,1126,897],"class_list":["post-84257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida-department-of-transportation","tag-fort-myers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}