Sanibel residents recovering from Helene two years after IanFort Myers Beach seeking to avoid unnecessary traffic after Helene
SANIBEL Sanibel residents recovering from Helene two years after Ian Due to Helene, The City of Sanibel has postponed a two-year Ian celebration and turned the event into a cleanup.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach seeking to avoid unnecessary traffic after Helene The town of Fort Myers Beach is asking some people not to visit the island.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR Historic home and lives upended in Charlotte Harbor flooding While Hurricane Helene was not expected to cause a life-threatening storm surge in the county, the residents were walloped by rising flood water.
Dekle Beach Gov. DeSantis reviews the damage done by Hurricane Helene Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to hold a news conference in Dekle Beach.
Tracking power outages after Helene There are still several thousand neighbors in southwest Florida without power as of Saturday.
The Weather Authority The Weather Authority: Scattered rain and storms throughout your Saturday The Weather Authority is tracking scattered rain and storms throughout your Saturday afternoon.
Southwest Florida remembers Hurricane Ian 2 years later; what happened before and after the storm The storm that had devastated Southwest Florida, Hurricane Ian, has now reached its 2nd anniversary of landfall.
High School Football Scoreboard Week 6 Hurricane Helene couldn’t keep all the Friday night lights off in Southwest Florida. Week 6 was a loaded slate included a classic in the WINK News Game of the Week.
BONITA SPRINGS Bonita Springs begins clean up operations On Friday, the Department of Transportation pushed sand off the road on Hickory Island after Hurricane Helene ripped through
MANASOTA KEY Manasota woman recovers after home destroyed by Helene Whipping winds – the sound of Hurricane Helene ripping through Manasota Key, as swells smashed into the island. Even so, Marsha Viglianco stayed to watch from her back porch.
El Jobean residents fighting to recover from Helene In Charlotte County, people living in El Jobean are in recovery mode Friday night. Many were flooded out of their homes, and now they’re figuring out their next steps.
NAPLES Restoration efforts begin in the aftermath of Helene in Collier County Helene gave Naples Beach flash flooding a debris Thursday night.
PUNTA GORDA Punta Gorda couple deals with flooding after Helene A Punta Gorda couple is recovering as the storm surge from Helene went through their dream home.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Flooding affects business in downtown Fort Myers In downtown Fort Myers, the streets may be drying up, but for one business owner on Bay Street, the true struggle is just getting started.
BONITA SPRINGS Damage in Bonita Springs from Helene It seems like nearly every place on the water was left with significant damage. In Bonita Springs, storm surge pushed into the city.
SANIBEL Sanibel residents recovering from Helene two years after Ian Due to Helene, The City of Sanibel has postponed a two-year Ian celebration and turned the event into a cleanup.
FORT MYERS BEACH Fort Myers Beach seeking to avoid unnecessary traffic after Helene The town of Fort Myers Beach is asking some people not to visit the island.
CHARLOTTE HARBOR Historic home and lives upended in Charlotte Harbor flooding While Hurricane Helene was not expected to cause a life-threatening storm surge in the county, the residents were walloped by rising flood water.
Dekle Beach Gov. DeSantis reviews the damage done by Hurricane Helene Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to hold a news conference in Dekle Beach.
Tracking power outages after Helene There are still several thousand neighbors in southwest Florida without power as of Saturday.
The Weather Authority The Weather Authority: Scattered rain and storms throughout your Saturday The Weather Authority is tracking scattered rain and storms throughout your Saturday afternoon.
Southwest Florida remembers Hurricane Ian 2 years later; what happened before and after the storm The storm that had devastated Southwest Florida, Hurricane Ian, has now reached its 2nd anniversary of landfall.
High School Football Scoreboard Week 6 Hurricane Helene couldn’t keep all the Friday night lights off in Southwest Florida. Week 6 was a loaded slate included a classic in the WINK News Game of the Week.
BONITA SPRINGS Bonita Springs begins clean up operations On Friday, the Department of Transportation pushed sand off the road on Hickory Island after Hurricane Helene ripped through
MANASOTA KEY Manasota woman recovers after home destroyed by Helene Whipping winds – the sound of Hurricane Helene ripping through Manasota Key, as swells smashed into the island. Even so, Marsha Viglianco stayed to watch from her back porch.
El Jobean residents fighting to recover from Helene In Charlotte County, people living in El Jobean are in recovery mode Friday night. Many were flooded out of their homes, and now they’re figuring out their next steps.
NAPLES Restoration efforts begin in the aftermath of Helene in Collier County Helene gave Naples Beach flash flooding a debris Thursday night.
PUNTA GORDA Punta Gorda couple deals with flooding after Helene A Punta Gorda couple is recovering as the storm surge from Helene went through their dream home.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Flooding affects business in downtown Fort Myers In downtown Fort Myers, the streets may be drying up, but for one business owner on Bay Street, the true struggle is just getting started.
BONITA SPRINGS Damage in Bonita Springs from Helene It seems like nearly every place on the water was left with significant damage. In Bonita Springs, storm surge pushed into the city.
ABOVE THE FLORIDA STRAITS (AP) – With a shift in the relationship between Havana and Washington, many Cubans are now attempting a risky sea crossing out of fear that the U.S. will change its “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy allowing any Cuban reaching U.S. land to stay and pursue citizenship. Without it, they’d be treated like other foreigners caught illegally in the country – ineligible for citizenship and subject to deportation. The U.S. Coast Guard returns any Cuban migrants caught at sea to the communist island. Authorities have captured or intercepted more than 2,600 since Oct. 1, and that tally is expected to match or surpass last year’s total of nearly 4,000. “It’s fair to say that this is the ‘Wild West’ of the Coast Guard,” said Lt. Cmdr. Gabe Somma, spokesman for the Coast Guard’s Miami-based 7th District, which patrols the Florida Straits. “We’ve got drugs, we’ve got migrants and we’ve got search and rescue, and we’ve got an enormous area, approximately the size of the continental United States.” PILOT’S VIEW The steady hum of a Coast Guard aircraft flying low loops over these swift, dark blue waters broadcasts a distinct message to migrants: Nothing has changed. The Coast Guard planes are equipped with sensors that pick out shapes on the water’s surface miles away. From a patrol altitude of about 1,500 feet, cruise ships look like smudges on the horizon and sailboats are white dots with long wakes. A migrant vessel appears the size of a buoy. Pilots look for something suspicious: waves that don’t break quite right, a dark speck in a cloud’s shadow, the glint of something tossed overboard or the ripple of a blue tarp. “I’ve seen two guys on a Styrofoam sheet with two backpacks,” Lt. Luke Zitzman said from the cockpit of a recent patrol. Coast Guard crews will open their cargo doors to toss buckets containing water and food, sometimes their own lunches, down to migrants frantically signaling for help. They’ve also watched migrants push away life jackets and inflatable rafts thrown down to keep them afloat in deep waters before a Coast Guard cutter arrives. If they can see a shoreline, many migrants will try to swim for it. “That must be really frustrating, to see that’s freedom but not realize how far away that it really is,” said Lt. Hans de Groot, the pilot of a recent patrol. FORCED ROOMMATES Once picked up by the Coast Guard, migrants find themselves transferred from cutter to cutter before they return to Cuba. Aboard the cutter Charles David Jr., crew members sometimes recognize faces among the roughly 900 migrants who have crossed the decks since 2013. A family with a 4-year-old girl has shown up twice, and other migrants have confessed to getting caught half a dozen times or more. Although Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Beaudoin calls the migrants his guests, some can’t be pacified. Past guests have lashed out at crew, refused food and water or tried to hurt themselves, hoping to win a transfer to Florida. (That rarely works.) “They’re humans; they’re trying to make a better life for themselves. They’re not just trying to come to the U.S. to freeload. We’ve had some that have been on board six, seven times, and there’s definitely desperation there,” said Boatswain 2nd Class Matthew Karas, watching over the migrants. In their wake, the Coast Guard burns or sinks migrants’ rafts. Lately, Beaudoin has noticed many rafts primarily made from construction spray foam, enforced with rebar and wrapped in vinyl tarps. These won’t sink, and the Coast Guard rigs them with transmitters that alert other vessels to the obstacle in the water. “You look at all the risks that they’re taking on those ventures and not being successful, and yet not being thwarted enough to say, ‘I’m not going to do it a 16th time,'” Beaudoin said, squinting into the sun’s glare off the water. “One can’t underestimate the power of the motivation of the migrant trying to enter the United States.”