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How the Fort Myers Beach community is handling Helene’s aftermath

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One storm hit Fort Myers Beach, but the damage is as different from block to block as the stories their homeowners tell.

WINK News reporter Annalise Iraola went to Fort Myers Beach to hear some of these stories in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

She heard everything from lessons for next time to considering moving out.

While most said they would stay, learn from this, and move on, for some people like Frank Kaiser, this storm brought more than a storm surge; It gave him new doubts about his future on Fort Myers Beach.

Helene’s storm surge brought this mess, and now neighbors like Carie Harris and Tamara Geer are washing and drying out their flooded homes.

“I just gotta take it one day at a time and just trust that God’s got the ball, and he’s going to send me all the right people,” said Geer.

Harris told WINK, “Our lower level, you know, is just full of the muck that everybody else is seeing, cleaning everything out, and you have to wash everything.”

Sterling Avenue and Seminole Way tell the story of Helene’s aftermath. Muck and gut, tear it out, dry it out and try to move on.

Frank Kaiser’s home was flooded with three feet of water. A carpenter by trade, he lost thousands in tools.

“It’s devastating—I tried! The outcome, yeah…It’s terrible, but it’s life, and that’s what you do,” said Kaiser.

He’s lived here since 1992 and seen storms come and go.

But Kaiser said he’s considering leaving Fort Myers Beach after this storm.

“This was our dream, and we worked our butt off for it, and now you want to take it. I go, ‘Come on,’ right?” he said.

And while he said he’ll miss the island, it’s the people he’ll miss the most.

“I’m going to miss the neighborhood. I mean, the people, you know. I just hope that somehow, some way, it gets better for everybody else,” said Kaiser.

It’s too soon to say yet who will stay and who will go, but one sentiment rings true for everyone here: The people and the community make Fort Myers Beach the paradise they bought into.

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