Debris clustered on Bonita Springs streets while Nicole approaches

Many Southwest Florida residents are working on picking up trash and debris from our streets as subtropical storm Nicole is expected to make landfall in Florida.

Hickory Boulevard on Bonita Beach was one of the hardest hit areas by Ian. And as people try to clean up the massive damage, they must figure out preparations for Nicole.

Piles of twisted metal, concrete, furniture, and debris piles getting larger all continue to sit on the road in Bonita Springs.

Despite recent events, Dawn Koncikowski is in good spirits and trying her best to keep an optimistic outlook.

“My stairs washed away, so I was using an 8-foot ladder to get in….”Koncikowski said.

Especially when she considers what some of the roads looked like after Ian plowed through Southwest Florida.

“We couldn’t drive down the sheriffs, and swat teams brought us down, and yea…it looked a little scary…because everything was just hanging then,” Koncikowski said. “But once we cleaned the debris up the first couple days…it was amazing.”

Terry Schwinghammer, like Koncikowski, feels lucky his home is livable but said he and his wife feel the trauma of watching the water slowly rise by them.

“I think we may have been lulled into a sense of complacency with Irma because we didn’t have a storm surge, so it probably won’t be much of a storm surge. But it kept crawling up higher and higher, and I thought well I better start putting some towels in the doors,” Schwinghammer said. “So naïve thinking it’s only gonna get a couple of inches of water, but it wasn’t long before it started coming up the stairwell, and you know the garage door couldn’t handle it the door the front door.”

Koncikowski and Schwinghammer going through a scenario that would be tough for anyone to forget.

“I also lost my boat…watched it float away. But those are just things…things can be replaced,” Schwinghammer said.

The city of Bonita Springs said it’s picked up almost 200,000 cubic yards of storm debris and crews are working every day to get the rest cleaned up.