Lee County Commission Chairman Cecil Pendergrass announced a seven-day state of emergency extension on Sunday afternoon, allowing county manager Roger Desjarlais to continue to work with other state agencies and the federal government in response to the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
Pendergrass asked residents to be patient as leaders work to further mobilize response and recovery efforts. “I know some parts of the county looks like everything’s back to normal,” he said. “Publix is open. People are shopping. Restaurants are open. But remember, we still have over 400 traffic signals down in the county that are not operational.”
Each traffic light stop that is not working is intended to be treated as a four way stop, causing confusion, traffic and possible hazardous conditions, leading Pendergrass to urge residents to stay home as much as possible.
Since a state of emergency was extended, county offices will remain closed for operational use, as some damage due to water intrusion needs to be fixed. Despite office closures, Pendergrass ensures county employees are still working.
“Behind the scenes those county employees are here working as you see behind me in the Emergency Operations Center,” he said. “Public works, Department of Transportation, Emergency Medical Services, all employees are working 24/7 right now.”
The county’s shelter operations are still up and have plenty of capacity, although Desjarlais said the county is beginning to pair the shelters down.
“We started out with about 4,000 people the day following the landfall of the storm, but we’re down to about 1,700,” he said. “We’ll be closing some of those shelters and consolidating into Hertz arena as many as we can.” Desjarlais said the county is working on the mix of special needs sheltering and general population sheltering.
The county opened four sites where residents can take vegetative debris or construction demolition debris if their homes have been flooded, experiencing destruction of furniture and belongings. Those who cannot or do not want to take debris or ruined property to the sites can put it on their curbs, as the county’s contract debris removal service will go in cycles until everything is removed.
Regular trash pickup for the county resumed Monday, but recycling is not yet ready.
As far as power is concerned, Florida Power and Light reports that a little more than 50% of their customers in Lee County now have power in their homes. Lee County Electric Cooperative reports having about 17% of their customers without power as of Sunday afternoon.
“Remember, this is day four,” Desjarlais said. “This is only day four of the response effort and we will, very shortly, be moving into the recovery phase of this.”
