South Fort Myers residents contend with worst flooding since Hurricane Irma

Homeowners are still drying out flooding soaked neighborhoods in south Fort Myers last night. People there say the water left behind is the worst they’ve seen since Hurricane Irma.

“It just works on you mentally,” said Fort Myers resident Guy Slifko. “It tires you out.”

Slifko has had to do a lot of cleaning up while living in his south Fort Myers home. After Hurricane Irma, he had to put his whole house back together again.

“Now you’ve got that in the back of your mind, how tough it was to rebuild your house and how much it costs, and what it does to you mentally,” Slifko said. “From here almost to the wall up there, it was all underneath the water. And it’s taken 16, 17 hours to get it down this low.”

Slifko warns people not to mess around in standing water—wading or floating in inner tubes—where your feet might find downed power lines, sewage, fecal matter or even snakes.

“I had fish swimming in the garage,” he said. “And some kind of tadpoles. We got all that out this morning. [The rain] was about an inch from going in the house last night and four inches in the garage.”

“Our neighbor’s whole front lawn was covered with water, couldn’t see any grass,” said Jim Haessly of Birr Street. The water in his garage reached four inches.

“If this stuff doesn’t go away,” Slifko said, “it’s probably gonna flood our houses again tonight.”