Neighbors hit with flooding in Dean Park community

On Friday, roads in downtown Fort Myers were fairly dry. It’s a stark contrast to Thursday night’s storm surge caused by the outer bands of Hurricane Helene.

Some residents in the Dean Park neighborhood were still making repairs from Hurricane Ian when they were hit again with flooding from Hurricane Helene.

Some neighbors even had water enter their homes.

One of our own, Darik Kristofer, the afternoon personality on 96.9 Wink FM, was among them. He experienced about a foot of water entering his home on Thursday night.

“Most of the furniture is ruined. The bed is ruined. The desk is ruined. Anything that was, you know, one or two feet off the ground is soaked up,” said Kristofer.

On Friday, WINK News saw stuck cars being towed, including a Fort Myers Police Department patrol SUV.

Neighbors told WINK if they didn’t move their cars to higher ground, they would’ve lost them.

Another neighbor, Lynn Steward, also had water in her home on Wednesday after she had recently finished renovating her garage.

“We really didn’t think it was going to be that bad. And so, yeah, we just stayed,” said Stewart. “And then all of a sudden, water started coming up … and we’re watching, and then we said, ‘OK, maybe we better protect our garage.'”

Lynn got to work on Friday on her brand-new floors, hoping to save them.

Neighbors said the community is tight-knit, and they are coming together to help each other after the storm.

“We’re going to do our very best as residents of this neighborhood to come together to help clean up and to move forward, just as we always do through every storm,” said Kristofer. “I feel privileged to be a part of it.”

As a street reopened on Friday, neighbors offered to help pick up supplies from the store, clean up, and lend a hand to one another.