PUNTA GORDA Homes For Our Troops grants veteran new home Through all the cheers and a community-wide escort, it’s a ‘welcome to your forever home for army sergeant veteran Brandon Rethmel and his family.
ALVA LCSO responds to triple drowning in Alva The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is responding to a scene of a water rescue where three people were recovered.
PUNTA GORDA Preparing for hurricane season at the 2024 Charlotte County Hurricane Expo With hurricane season less than two weeks away, it’s important to start preparing.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Beat the Heat: Stay safe during extreme weather The Weather Authority has issued a heat advisory for portions of South, Southeast, and Southwest Florida from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday.
FORT MYERS Leaders discuss possibility of shutting down Caloosahatchee Bridge Should residents endure two years of partial lane closures, or fully shut the Caloosahatchee bridge down for 10 weeks?
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball parents cherish NCAA Tournament experience The parents of the FGCU softball team are relishing seeing their daughters play in the NCAA Tournament.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA The Weather Authority: Hot, hot, hot Heat advisory in place for Saturday until 8 p.m.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.Â
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over five and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
PUNTA GORDA Homes For Our Troops grants veteran new home Through all the cheers and a community-wide escort, it’s a ‘welcome to your forever home for army sergeant veteran Brandon Rethmel and his family.
ALVA LCSO responds to triple drowning in Alva The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is responding to a scene of a water rescue where three people were recovered.
PUNTA GORDA Preparing for hurricane season at the 2024 Charlotte County Hurricane Expo With hurricane season less than two weeks away, it’s important to start preparing.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Beat the Heat: Stay safe during extreme weather The Weather Authority has issued a heat advisory for portions of South, Southeast, and Southwest Florida from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday.
FORT MYERS Leaders discuss possibility of shutting down Caloosahatchee Bridge Should residents endure two years of partial lane closures, or fully shut the Caloosahatchee bridge down for 10 weeks?
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball parents cherish NCAA Tournament experience The parents of the FGCU softball team are relishing seeing their daughters play in the NCAA Tournament.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA The Weather Authority: Hot, hot, hot Heat advisory in place for Saturday until 8 p.m.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.Â
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over five and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Firefighter recovering from heat exhaustion after battling flames in Collier County It happened at Progress Rail, a transit corporation on Mercantile Avenue just before 5am on Friday.
Capt, William Hoey / marinetraffic.com / MGN Federal investigators said Monday that they are ending their search for the voyage data recorder of a cargo ship that sank in the Atlantic during a hurricane, but remained hopeful that they could determine what happened to the ship without it. “Over the years we’ve completed many investigations without the aid of recorders and other investigative tools,” National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart said in a statement. Hart said investigators are disappointed the El Faro’s “black box” was not found, but hopeful they can still find enough evidence to determine a probable cause of its sinking. The 790-foot freighter sank on Oct. 1 after it lost engine power and was disabled in the path of a Category 4 hurricane. The ship, with 33 crew members on board, was on its way from Jacksonville to Puerto Rico. No survivors were found. NTSB officials said recently that searchers had located the ship and its bridge, which had separated, in 15,000 feet of water. Still, a Navy submarine searching the area could not find the ship’s mast, where the recorder was mounted, Hart said. The data recorder charts the date, time and speed of a marine vessel, and also records conversations on the bridge that could include key decision-making between captain and crew. Recovering equipment at such depth is difficult, but has been done in other cases. Crews found the black boxes of an Air France jetliner that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009 on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The boxes were found in about 12,800 feet of water, but it took nearly two years after the wreckage was identified to find them. The boxes did prove instrumental in determining that pilot error contributed to the crash. Crews also retrieved the black box of a South African Airways airplane that plummeted into the Indian Ocean in 1987. That box was recovered from a depth of more than 15,000 feet, but did not help investigators identify a definitive cause of the crash. Since the El Faro’s sinking, a number of lawsuits have been filed by families accusing the ship’s owner, Tote Marine, and its captain, Michael Davidson, of wrongful death and negligence. They argue the ship should never have tried to outrun a hurricane, and that the decision to do so was motivated by money. Tote Marine has filed its own suit seeking to limit or release its liability, and company officials have claimed the El Faro was maintained properly and in good condition. The NTSB still has a lot of investigative avenues to help determine what happened, even without the data recorder, said Marjorie Cooke, a marine safety expert with Robson Forensic and former director of the NTSB’s office of marine safety. For example, images from the Navy’s remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, which explored the wreckage will provide important information about the ship’s shape in those final hours, she said. Also, there should be a lot of communications between Tote and the captain, and emails from crew to family from the ship to help piece together what occurred, she said. Voice data recorders were only required on vessels fairly recently, Cooke said, but many sinking-ship cases were solved prior to their regular use by other means, Cooke said. “There’s an awful lot of information from the classification society, the ship owner and the Coast Guard in regards to the vessel’s condition,” she said.