Iona residents frustrated with debris piles

Iona residents hope they can get back to normal.

They are right around the corner from areas like Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach, which were devastated during Hurricane Ian.

Iona didn’t have as much damage but they are still dealing with the aftermath of storm surge and debris.

One man has minor damage but is still without air conditioning one month after the storm.

Despite that, he feels lucky to still have a home.

Sonny Sammartino and his wife have lived in their Iona home for years and they love it.

But they also want to feel loved by response teams as well.

Sammartino sees the attention Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach are getting and he knows the cleanup takes time, but there is also debris in his neighborhood.

He wants to see Iona get some help.

“If I look at that stuff, I get depressed,” Sammartino.

Sammartino knows the debris piles on his street could be worse. Across McGregor Boulevard, at his friend’s home, the piles are so high they block the homes completely.

But he wants some normalcy.

“Luckily, I have window shutters. That’s a good advertisement for shutters, because they saved a lot of problems,” he said.

His air conditioner was lying against the door, sideways.

“We’re older; both my wife and I are in our 80’s. And not having an air conditioner was bad,” he said.

His roof lost some shingles but not enough to leak.

“Therefore one way down on the list of people to help,” he said.

He just wants help but is seeing it goes to the harder-hit areas and doesn’t want to be forgotten.

“We want our fair share of help,” he said. “We’re not asking for anything that we don’t deserve.”

The county spokesperson assures WINK News people out there are not forgotten.

They have already removed tens of thousands of cubic yards of debris. They know there is more and the trucks will be going by again.