Cape Coral prepares for Hurricane Milton

The City of Cape Coral held another press conference Tuesday to give an update on Hurricane Milton. The city is urging people in zones A and B to evacuate now.

They also asked residents to secure loose items around homes and structures and be smart and safe. Basically, do anything you can to prepare for the storm surge as the city says they are doing the same.

“If you’re an evacuation zone, please evacuate now. Don’t wait,” said Cape Coral Mayor John Gunter.

Ryan Lamb, the Cape Coral Emergency Management Director echoed the urgency.

“Evacuation orders aren’t something that is done lightly. It is done because we believe that there is an immediate danger to your life and health if you remain in that location through the duration of the storm. So evacuate now,” Lamb said.

Generators should be 20 feet away from homes, avoid downed powerlines, and major appliances should be turned off as they could catch on fire.

The city wants to remind Cape Coral, residents that 6 inches of water can knock a human down and 1 foot of water can sweep a car away.

WINK News met Gary Lancos on Tuesday.

“We’re staying here. You know, prior to moving and building here, we learned some lessons from where we lived prior on a barrier island in South Carolina. We had four years in a row back-to-back hurricanes where we needed to evacuate,” Lancos said.

Lancos took the lessons and applied them when building his home in Cape Coral. His sloped driveway is 10 feet fall. He did that to help prevent flooding. He has never seen flooding inside his home.

He is staying at his home by the river for the storm partly because of his inclined driveway but staying aware.

“We’re definitely going to be peeking outside to watch as this surge begins because it doesn’t take very long for that to come on land. So we’ll be watching that. Not much we could do to stop it, but at least we have some ideas to what to anticipate or expect,”

His new boat is his biggest concern.

“With the water rising, we don’t know to what level, so there’s only so much you could do to compensate for that rise. And I think that we covered all the bases there with the way we strapped the boat down, did the cradle independent, ratcheted it down,” Lancos said.

As Lancos did, secure all boats, furniture and any lingering items in and outside of your homes for obvious reasons: they can cause more damage.

According to the city, Cape Coral’s only shelter, Island Coast High School, has not reached capacity yet. Pets are allowed. Drinks and food are not provided.

Cape Coral will go into a local state of emergency at 7 p.m. Tuesday. This will not directly affect any residents. What this does is open up emergency resources and funding.

311 is Cape Coral’s non-emergency phone number. The city says to call 911 if you have an emergency.