Lee County damage assessment map causing confusion

Many in Lee County, like Marty White of Fort Myers Beach, notice their properties have been marked with colored dots on a damage assessment map on the county website.

“I got an orange on my property, it received seven and a half feet of water to the ground level, Michigan-built home,” White said. “There’s no damage to the structure but I got an orange dot.”

Orange equals major damage.

White has noticed discrepancies between the color of the dot on their property and the color of the one on their neighbor’s home.

“I know homes that don’t have any dots. Other homes on my street, that are the same as my home, with the green dots and yellow dots and they received just as much water,” White said.

Green means an affected home, yellow means minor damage.

So what do the dots really represent?

The county told WINK News the dots may have been placed there by fire or Urban Search and Rescue crews on the ground.

They are not definitive representations of the actual amount of damage to a structure.

The map was created to help determine the impact and magnitude of damage and the resulting needs of people, businesses and the community as a whole after the storm.

Fort Myers Beach Town Manager Roger Hernstadt explained this at the town’s meeting on Tuesday.

“So they use that to assess the extent of damages so that they can make certain decisions in the state with regard to things, such as will FEMA pay for debris from your house to be removed from the curb? Or will it pay to be removed from your property? Will they take down your property if you ask them to, things of that nature,” Hernstadt said.

If you think the dot on your property doesn’t accurately reflect the damage or lack thereof, don’t panic.

In fact, when you get to the map, the site itself reminds you that the data is for estimation purposes only and that damage levels and dollar figures are estimates that should not be considered accurate or final.