NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla — One year ago, tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Milton ripped through North Fort Myers, tearing homes apart and destroying some businesses.
Fox 4’s North Fort Myers Community Correspondent, Austin Schargorodski, covered the damage back then. Now, a year later, he returned to see how far the recovery has come.
Watch to hear what businesses told Austin about the recovery the past year:
In Pine Lakes and Lake Fairways, a tornado carved a path of destruction, ripped roofs, battered homes, and littered streets with debris. But homes weren’t the only things hit in the area - North Plaza off Pondella Road, home to businesses like Xtreme Barbershop, took a direct hit too.
Barber Lazaro Ochoa gave Schargorodski a video showing the roof of the shop ripped off and the inside left in shambles. Ochoa says coming there after the storm wasn’t easy.
“It was a hard moment. Because I've been working here for a long time and have many friendships, and a lot of people I have a relationship with, and it was sad to realize that you could lose your job,” said Ochoa.
But in the days after, he says friends, family… everyone came together to help. Thanks to the plaza owners stepping up quickly, Ochoa says the shop was back in business just two months later.
“It felt changed during the beginning, because everything was a bit rough, a bit unstable, but little by little with time, now it's been a year since then and it's like everything is getting back into place again,” said Ochoa.
Thankfully, not every business was damaged. Titi and Tata's Thrift Boutique survived unscathed. But owner Janice Roman says even with repairs made, her customer traffic never fully returned.
“I think they thought maybe because some of the businesses got so hurt a lot of us wouldn't return, or the plaza itself, but we are still here. There are still a lot of us here,” said Roman.
For those who stayed, Ochoa says it means even more now, after everything they’ve been through. “It feels the same. It feels like home,” said Ochoa.
