Removing cars from Naples waterways after Hurricane Ian

Cars submerged during Hurricane Ian are getting hauled out of the water more than five months after the storm hit Southwest Florida.

Nobody wants cars, trucks, and SUVs to stay underwater, but people fear the vehicles are harming sea life.

“I saw the silhouette of a sunroof and said, wow, that’s a car. So, I notified Naples P.D. They weren’t sure if they had that one yet, but I sent them a picture, and I emailed them, and they got to me pretty quickly and said they were working on it,” Anthony Gucciardo, a Southwest Florida snowbird, said.

Working on it means getting word to the state. Florida has hired contractors to start recovering cars. At least 60 vehicles in Naples and Collier County alone are missing and unaccounted for.

Looking through the WINK News drone, a barge is visible with three vehicles removed from the water at Moorings Bay.

Contractors were also hard at work removing sunken cars from the Venetian Bay area of Naples.

“I saw some city guy in his truck here. I said, when’s that car getting craned out? Soon, he said, soon,” Alan Minoff, a Southwest Florida snowbird, said.

Minoff explained he is glad to see the water getting cleaned, as is Gucciardo.

“I think the salt rots things, so I would hope that the fluids that were in the car would remain in the car and not pollute the water, but obviously with a storm of that magnitude, there were a lot of cars that were in the water,” Gucciardo said.

WINK News reached out to the Florida Department of Emergency Management to find out how many cars crews have pulled out of the water. WINK News also asked about how long they plan to work on the project. As soon as they let us know WINK News will let you know.