Damaged Cape Coral stop signs replaced months after Hurricane Ian

Hurricane Ian damaged thousands of street signs and traffic signals, but the restoration process is progressing in Cape Coral.

As of April, the city said crews finished installing the replacement stop signs. Nearly eight months after the storm passed, the meticulous and difficult task was complete.

“We weren’t going to wait to get approval from the FEMA replacement. That’s something we knew that you know for traffic safety that had to be done,” John Gunter, the Mayor of Cape Coral, said.

That priority work took so long to finish because there were 8,000 damaged stop signs after the storm. Since it’s finished, the focus will begin to shift to the other street signs that got damaged from the storm. The city estimates around 49,000 more signs are damaged, including street names, speed limits, and directional signs.

A day that all the signs are fixed is one that Cape Coral local Nancy Banks is keenly anticipating.

“The names of the streets that’s kind of hard because I’m still not that familiar with Cape Coral so, especially all the streets they have here in the northwest southwest and all that. It would help if they had fixed those,” Banks said.

“I’ve seen some that have actually turned so you know it gives you know the resident or the visitor that’s maybe not familiar with the area they think they’re on one road when they look at the sign, but they’re on another,” Mayor Gunter said.

During their meeting on Wednesday, the city’s transportation advisory committee also got the latest word on the city’s traffic signals, specifically those eligible for reimbursement. The Federal Highway Administration has approved assessment packages for all but four intersections.