CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — Charlotte County was still reeling from Hurricane Helene, but now it has to clean up AGAIN — after taking storm surge and other extensive damage from Hurricane Milton, with much of the damage in coastal areas.
Watch Fox 4's Alex Orenczuk and Dominga Murray report on how Hurricane Milton impacted Charlotte County residents:
In downtown Punta Gorda, on the city’s Peace River coast, homes and businesses were flooded. The surge dropped several boats that were anchored nearby and debris into the city’s Gilchrist Park.
The storm also destroyed boats and other property belonging to Gulf Shore Sailing, a sailing school still recovering from Hurricane Ian in 2022.
“Us trying to rebuild from Ian, and trying to get a lot of our students back, our income, getting new boats we thought we were making progress,” said Luca Vaast-Petrovick, an instructor with the school. “Now with Milton, we don’t have much, it’s worse.”
El Jo Bean an area of the county near the Myakka River, saw extensive flooding from Hurricane Milton as well. Roy Marques owns a home there and told Fox 4 that he evacuated after hearing about the surge forecasts for the area, and came back to find that his house was spared from the flooding.
“Everyone said that we were going to get over ten feet of storm surge, so we lifted up all the mattresses, pillows, and anything that was touching the floor,” said Marques. “We took all our vehicles with us because the storm surge was going to be horrible, and by the grace of god we were saved.”
Marques said he did lose an extensive garden of unique plants.
Manasota Key is an area that was already badly damaged by Hurricane Helene, which inundated the island with storm surge and sand. According to Charlotte County officials said the damage brought by Milton was equally as bad if not worse and have closed the roads leading to the island.
“Houses are destroyed, there’s sand that is actually filling the houses up,” said Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell. “It was very devastating to all the people on the coast. We have work crews in there right now because the roads are impassable, we couldn’t even get through with four wheel drive vehicles. We had to walk in when we did our search and rescues yesterday.”
Sheriff Prummell said the number of hazards on the island brought by the storm make it too dangerous to let anyone on the island yet.
“There are downed power lines, there’s sand everywhere and we don’t know what the sand is covering up, and there is damage all over the place,” said Sheriff Prummell. “So, its just a hazardous situation.
Sheriff Prummell said there is no timeline for when roads the lead to the island will reopen. Additionally, he told Fox 4 that no fatalities have been reported that were directly related to Hurricane Milton in Charlotte County.
