Hot and dry Monday afternoon before isolated storms pop up this eveningCaught on Camera: Firefighters respond to dumpster fire at FGCU
WINK NEWS Hot and dry Monday afternoon before isolated storms pop up this evening On monday morning, the weather is starting mild and humid with temperatures in the upper 60s and lower 70s.
FORT MYERS Caught on Camera: Firefighters respond to dumpster fire at FGCU San Carlos Park Fire District responded to a dumpster fire Sunday afternoon.
FORT MYERS FGCU students affected by Covid celebrate first commencement ceremony Graduation is a right of passage from school to the real world, but for these students, reality hit them in 2020.
PUNTA GORDA Motorcycle crash leaves 1 dead One person has died after a motorcycle crash in Charlotte County.
LEE COUNTY Lee Deputies work to track down transient sex offenders who fail to register WINK News Anchor Corey Lazar goes on patrol with Lee County Deputies in search of transient sex offenders who don’t register.
National Hurricane Preparedness Week: Know your risk Hurricane season starts on June 1st, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has designated the week of May 5 through May 11 as National Hurricane Preparedness Week. Each day, Meteorologist Lauren Kreidler will be highlighting ways to stay prepared ahead of this year’s hurricane season.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Stay alert – chance of showers and storms on Sunday Hot, humid, and more rain for parts of Southwest Florida on Sunday.
CAPE CORAL What we learned about Cape Coral’s water crisis after a ride along On Friday, WINK News got to ride along to see just what people are doing that could be wasting water.
The Weather Authority: A wet Saturday evening as storms move through Southwest Florida A rainy Saturday evening across much of southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS Lee Health Touch-A-Truck event educates families on Trauma Awareness On Saturday morning, sirens were ringing to celebrate Lee Health Trauma Center’s 30 years of service and to provide the public with trauma education and prevention methods.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA (CBS) CDC says bird flu viruses “pose pandemic potential,” cites major knowledge gaps Bird flu continues to appear to pose a “low risk to the general public” for now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. But the agency’s scientists ran into roadblocks investigating a human case of this “pandemic potential” virus this year, they said in a new report.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Bay Street Yard set to open in late May A new place to hang out in Downtown Fort Myers is opening this spring.
Aetna agrees to settle lawsuit over fertility coverage for LGBTQ+ customers Aetna has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of discriminating against LGBTQ+ customers in need of fertility treatment.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA WINK Neighborhood Watch: Robbery, Pawn Shops, and Child Porn This week’s segment of Wink Neighborhood Watch features an armed robber, fraud at a pawn shop, and possession of child pornography.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Sun, clouds, humidity, rain – it’s all in your weekend forecast Saturday afternoon will be hot and humid, with a mix of sun and clouds.
WINK NEWS Hot and dry Monday afternoon before isolated storms pop up this evening On monday morning, the weather is starting mild and humid with temperatures in the upper 60s and lower 70s.
FORT MYERS Caught on Camera: Firefighters respond to dumpster fire at FGCU San Carlos Park Fire District responded to a dumpster fire Sunday afternoon.
FORT MYERS FGCU students affected by Covid celebrate first commencement ceremony Graduation is a right of passage from school to the real world, but for these students, reality hit them in 2020.
PUNTA GORDA Motorcycle crash leaves 1 dead One person has died after a motorcycle crash in Charlotte County.
LEE COUNTY Lee Deputies work to track down transient sex offenders who fail to register WINK News Anchor Corey Lazar goes on patrol with Lee County Deputies in search of transient sex offenders who don’t register.
National Hurricane Preparedness Week: Know your risk Hurricane season starts on June 1st, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has designated the week of May 5 through May 11 as National Hurricane Preparedness Week. Each day, Meteorologist Lauren Kreidler will be highlighting ways to stay prepared ahead of this year’s hurricane season.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Stay alert – chance of showers and storms on Sunday Hot, humid, and more rain for parts of Southwest Florida on Sunday.
CAPE CORAL What we learned about Cape Coral’s water crisis after a ride along On Friday, WINK News got to ride along to see just what people are doing that could be wasting water.
The Weather Authority: A wet Saturday evening as storms move through Southwest Florida A rainy Saturday evening across much of southwest Florida.
FORT MYERS Lee Health Touch-A-Truck event educates families on Trauma Awareness On Saturday morning, sirens were ringing to celebrate Lee Health Trauma Center’s 30 years of service and to provide the public with trauma education and prevention methods.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA (CBS) CDC says bird flu viruses “pose pandemic potential,” cites major knowledge gaps Bird flu continues to appear to pose a “low risk to the general public” for now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. But the agency’s scientists ran into roadblocks investigating a human case of this “pandemic potential” virus this year, they said in a new report.
DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS Bay Street Yard set to open in late May A new place to hang out in Downtown Fort Myers is opening this spring.
Aetna agrees to settle lawsuit over fertility coverage for LGBTQ+ customers Aetna has agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the health insurer of discriminating against LGBTQ+ customers in need of fertility treatment.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA WINK Neighborhood Watch: Robbery, Pawn Shops, and Child Porn This week’s segment of Wink Neighborhood Watch features an armed robber, fraud at a pawn shop, and possession of child pornography.
Southwest Florida The Weather Authority: Sun, clouds, humidity, rain – it’s all in your weekend forecast Saturday afternoon will be hot and humid, with a mix of sun and clouds.
The worst of Hurricane Idalia left residents of a region of tight-knit communities trying to find places to live as they rebuild — if they decide it’s even worth it — and waiting potentially weeks for electricity to be restored after winds and water took out entire power grids. Idalia came ashore Wednesday in Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region, where places to fish and paddle are connected by swamps. The scope of the disaster came into sharper focus Friday. A power cooperative warned its 28,000 customers it might take two weeks to restore electricity. Emergency officials promised trailers would arrive over the weekend to provide housing in an area that didn’t have much to begin with. Hurricane Idalia recovery is underway. CREDIT WINK News “We’ll build back. We’ll continue to fish and enjoy catching the redfish and trout and eating oysters and catching scallops and eating them,” said real estate agent Jimmy Butler, who lives in Horseshoe Beach, which saw some of the worst damage. Idalia made landfall Wednesday near Keaton Beach with winds of 125 mph (200 kph) and a 6-foot (1.8-meter) storm surge. The fast-moving storm then tore through largely rural stretches of inland Florida and southern Georgia. While the storm wreaked havoc on a slice of old Florida that has escaped massive coastal development, its path and forward speed spared the state’s insurance industry a huge financial hit, said elected Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, whose agency oversees the state Office of Insurance Regulation. Two days after the more powerful Hurricane Ian hit southwest Florida last year around Fort Myers, for instance, the state reported more than 62,000 insurance claims. In the two days after Idalia, there have been about 3,000, Patronis said. But some of the Big Bend’s older homes may have been passed down for generations, owned outright and not insured. People who lost everything may decide they can’t afford or it is not worth it to rebuild, leaving a bigger cultural impact than a financial one, Patronis said. Flooding from Hurricane Idalia. CREDIT: WINK News “This is somebody’s way of life. This is the way somebody took care of their families and their families took care of them and they’re hard working people,” Patronis said. “Mother Nature’s going to wipe them off the map and they’re going to say, ‘You know what? Maybe this is a sign for us to cash out.’” More than 100,000 homes and businesses in both states remained without power Friday, according to PowerOutage.us. And even with high temperatures below normal, the high humidity meant sweltering late-summer days and nights, with no power to run air conditioners. That included almost all 28,000 customers of the Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative, which provides power to four inland Florida counties through 4,100 miles (6,600 kilometers) of lines — or enough to stretch to northern Alaska. The co-op warned its customers to prepare to be without power for two weeks. It lost most of its big power lines that bring electricity into its territory, along with more than 400 broken poles and 2,500 cases of damaged equipment or downed lines. The utility was bringing extra people in from everywhere, swelling its force of 100 line workers, tree trimmers and others to more than 750. Generators were being set up to help a few restaurants and other businesses operate. “So even though we have fantastic employees and have arranged for a lot of help from contractors and other cooperatives, it’s going to take a while to get everyone’s power back on,” co-op CEO Mike McWaters wrote to his customers. Damage from Hurricane Idalia. CREDIT: WINK News It wasn’t as grim to the west, where Tri-County Electric Cooperative initially warned its 14,500 customers of two-week outages, but revised that to saying all but the worst-damaged few hundred homes would be back online by Tuesday. The key has been adding workers and quickly restoring the main transmission lines that bring power generated elsewhere in the state, spokesperson Kaitlyn Culpepper said. Helping to clear trees are members of the Florida National Guard and the state Forestry Department, Culpepper said. One Georgia resident died when a tree fell on him as he tried to clear another tree from a road. Officials said there appeared to be a storm-related death around Gainesville, Florida, but did not release details. Democratic President Joe Biden planned to visit Florida on Saturday and survey the damage with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — who is campaigning to unseat Biden — but details were still being worked out. “What we want to do is make sure that power restoration continues, that the relief efforts continue, and we don’t have any interruption to that,” DeSantis said Friday. “I’m sure they’ll be sensitive to that.” Recovery continued in other places, too. In hard-hit Valdosta, Georgia, where nearly half the surrounding county’s 32,000 electric customers remained without power, the local university stuck with its plans to play football Saturday but moved the game from the evening to the afternoon because of power issues. Idalia was a tropical storm by the time it reached South Carolina, but it brought a storm surge that — along with a periodic, unusually high tide — flooded Charleston and almost every beach community. The storm eroded many of the dunes on the Isle of Palms, leaving crews scrambling to smooth out large drop-offs on beach access paths ahead of Labor Day weekend. Beaches in Florida south of where Idalia’s center struck also suffered serious erosion. Pinellas County closed off 14 of 28 beach access walkovers in Indian Rocks Beach alone. The wooden walkway to the beach is now 4 feet (1.2 meters) above the sand in some places. “We’ve probably lost about a third of the beach, if not more,” said Indian Rocks Beach City Manager Greg Mims. The remnants of Idalia continued moving away from the U.S. on Friday. Forecasters warned it could become a tropical storm again Saturday and bring winds and rains to Bermuda, which also this week was lashed by winds and rain from the outer bands of Hurricane Franklin. WINK News contributed to this article.