CAPE CORAL, Fla. — Senator Rick Scott received an update on recovery efforts in the Cape Coral area from Hurricane Ian.
The senator was joined by city officials as he toured the Cape Coral Yacht Club, seeing some of the hurricane’s damage first-hand. Damage that is requiring more time to recover.
"We have a variety of issues that we deal with, but this is very important,” said Senator Scott.
An issue of importance as the yacht club and beach continue to rebuild.
“It's amazing to see the spirit of people," said Commissioner Brian Hamman. "They're resilient, they're rebuilding, and that's what we're here to do. We're here to remove the roadblocks that are getting in their way from that process.”
Removing roadblocks, both figuratively and literally, as the beach remains closed since Hurricane Ian.
"Every year it gets better, but this doesn't happen in a day," said Senator Scott. "I mean it takes a long time to rebuild everything but the most important thing is keeping everyone alive. You can rebuild all of this stuff but you just want people to stay safe.”
The senator's visit comes just a day after Governor Ron DeSantis announced millions of dollars will be going to counties throughout the state to help rebuild beaches, with more than $23 million going to Lee County.
"The hard thing is you have to get all of the municipalities to work together to do it," said the senator. "Whether you're building the dunes or things like that, you have to think about what you're doing to make sure if it happens again it doesn't get ruined again.”
Senator Scott also said he's working on other issues. Ones that can be solved at the federal level, like bringing mail back to those living on the beach.
“I've talked to the mayors, I've talked to the county commissioners to try to solve these problems. I know we've been working on trying to get the mail back to Fort Myers Beach and to Sanibel. I think we're getting real close on Fort Myers Beach and, hopefully, within about a week also on Sanibel.”
As for a timeline on when we can expect to see the yacht club back open, that may also require a little more time.
“It was scheduled to get some improvements with the parks go bond that was passed back in 2018, but we surely have a different element now that we have to address," said John Gunter, Mayor of the City of Cape Coral. "So that's what those discussions next week will be.”
Something, Gunter says, that is going to require a partnership of all government levels.
