Good, bad and ugly: The top stories of 2022
When you look back at the headlines that dominated the last six months in Bonita Springs and Estero, the news was not all good; but fortunately, there were still many positives to report. Stories of giving and heroics.
There were also challenges, maybe none greater than Hurricane Ian.
Weathering the storm
Wednesday, Sept. 28, Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa, an island off the coast of Fort Myers, as a Category 4 storm, devasting Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and so many more, including Bonita Springs.
They jumped out windows. They walked in water up to their chest during the height of the storm. They said there were shocked that their homes flooded.
Bonita Shores residents were told their neighborhood would never flood. It is one of the highest points west of US 41. When the Walker family built the community in the 1950s, they dug canals on the west end and used all that fill to raise the entire community.
Many of the houses are 12-14 feet above sea level. Bonita Shores has never flooded before. That all changed Sept. 28 as residents watched the water rise in their backyards, slosh over their swimming pools and seep into their homes.
Vicki and Bill Miller were shocked at how fast the water rose.
“We threw stuff into a backpack and by the time we did that the water was over the doors and we couldn’t get out,” Vicki Miller described. “We went out our brand-new hurricane windows.”
“It was so fast,” Bill Miller added.
“Water was gushing down 7th Street,” Vicki Miller described. “We couldn’t get onto East Valley because of all the water. In the 30 years I have lived here we have never had a water issue.”
Karen and Dean Gross, both in their 70s, also escaped during the height of the storm.
“It was terrifying,” Karen Gross said. “I just remember the wind and the rain pelting over our faces. The water was chest deep.”
Across the street, Chuck and Kathleen Carlton decided to stay in their flooded home.
“We just stood in the middle of the house and watched the water fill up,” Chuck Carlton described. “We stood in the water hoping it would go down.” In about three hours the water finally receded and the Carlton’s were left standing in muddy puddles.
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The heroes of Tonya Court and Wisconsin Street
They were labeled the heroes of Tonya Court and Wisconsin Street. As water rushed down their streets and into homes during Hurricane Ian, three men on paddleboards and a personal watercraft rescued more than a dozen people along with dogs, cats, rabbits and even a horse.
They say they don’t feel like heroes, yet with downed power lines, they took big risks to paddle through the water knocking on doors and windows where they found people standing on countertops and tables to avoid the rapidly rising water.
“I felt like it was something I had to do,” Sammy Sosa said. “I could not sit there knowing people could possibly drown.”
Sosa and his neighbor, Scott Sopher, grabbed two yellow and white paddleboards from a neighbor’s yard and began the quest of helping people. A block away Jules De Ron hopped on his personal watercraft to help.
“It felt good that we were helping people,” Sopher said. “I didn’t feel like a hero. I just did it.”
The people that were rescued were taken to homes on dry land further down on Wisconsin Street.
“The water came up so fast,” Sopher said. “We knew people were stuck in their houses so we grabbed the paddleboards and went. It was one of the craziest things I’ve seen.”
Paul Byrne stood on his kitchen table on Tonya Court as the water rose. When the water got higher than the four-foot-tall table, he put a milk crate on top of that and stood there. Byrne says he does not know how to swim, so it was scary.
“The water came in very quickly,” Byrne described. “I had spent quite a bit of time getting my precious documents high and by the time that was done it was too high to get out. It was just all a big lake.”
From his perch on the crate, Byrne saw the men with the paddleboards rescue his neighbors on both sides, before coming to his house.
“I’m not much of a swimmer, so he paddled in and took me on the board to the high house,” Bryne said. “I was elated.”
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Ian couldn’t wash away best turtle nest season ever in SWFLA
Hurricane Ian couldn’t wash away the best turtle nest season ever in Southwest Florida. Nesting season runs from May 1 to Oct 31 and luckily most of the nests had hatched by the time the big storm destroyed the local beaches. Bonita Beach smashed their nest record with a whopping 283 nests laid on that beach. The previous record was set in 2019 with 238 nests.
“It is an all-time record,” exclaimed Eve Haverfield, president and founder of Turtle Time, a non-profit organization that monitors sea turtles in south Lee County. “And we ended up with 23,817 hatchlings that made it to the Gulf which represents an 88 percent hatch rate.”
The news was not as good for gopher tortoises. Most of them that were living along the coast drowned or were washed away during Hurricane Ian, leaving populations so small they are probably not viable to recover.
Phil Allman, Associate Professor of Vertebrate Zoology, at Florida Gulf Coast University, has been studying these slow-moving reptiles weekly at Delnor Wiggins State Park since 2012.
“It is pretty devastating,” he said. “It was really difficult to go out there the first time and see the damage. It is something that it is hard to put into words what the devastation looked like. The storm had a pretty significant impact on all of the coastal populations. From north of Marco to Sanibel and Captiva, it seems that the coastal tortoises took a pretty big hit.”
Not the best year for Hertz
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating whether Hertz rented cars with known safety-related defects. In a notice posted on its website, the government agency revealed that it launched a probe Dec. 16.
The NHTSA opened an “audit query,” after receiving “information indicating that The Hertz Corporation rented vehicles to customers without required recall repairs performed on those vehicles,” according to the document.
The investigation involves Nissan and Ford models owned by Hertz from 2018 to 2020. More specifically, Ford Explorers and Nissan Altimas are mentioned as concerns.
And Hertz will pay nearly $170 million to settle hundreds of false theft claims involving its customers. The Estero-based rental giant announced the news in November.
In a news release, Hertz said it had settled 364 claims, “bringing resolution to more than 95%” of the total disputes.
Aggrieved customers accused the company of wrongful theft arrests for cars they legally rented.
Some customers claim they got pulled over, arrested and prosecuted for stealing cars because Hertz couldn’t locate its own vehicles after they got returned.
Others have complained of various other mix-ups with their rental returns, extensions or payments.
Hertz will pay about $168 million by year-end to resolve the majority of pending claims.
While that’s a big number, Hertz stated that it “expects to recover a meaningful portion of the settlement amount from its insurance carriers.”
New charter school coming to Estero
A new free charter school featuring a classical education is heading to Estero. Optima Classical Academy at Estero will open for the 2023-2024 academic year starting with grades K-8 and then adding each year to reach grade 12 and a capacity of 1,250 students.
Erika Donalds, CEO of OptimaEd, said Naples Classical Academy, that she opened last year, is so popular she wanted to expand into Lee County.
“We have a good chunk of families driving from Estero to Naples classical,” Donalds began. “I recognize there is opportunity for growth. I saw the need for a school and this is a great offering for all of the families there. I am excited that this is our first school in Lee County.”
Bonita Springs City Council seats in 3 districts filled
Jamie Bogacz, Laura Carr and Nigel Patrick Fullick come out on top for seats on the Bonita Springs City Council in districts 1, 3 and 5.
The winners will serve a four-year term. The new council members will take office Nov. 18. The council members are elected for a 4-year term with a 2-term limit. The monthly salary for city council members is $1,561.48 which comes to $18,737.76 annually.
Who won seats on the Collier County School Board? Not the incumbents
The votes are in, and challengers Jerry Rutherford, Kelly Lichter and Tim Moshier have been elected to the Collier County School Board.
They were decided victories, with Rutherford winning 65.4% of the vote, while Lichter took home 58% and Moshier 60.5%, according to early returns.
The Collier County School Board is made up of five seats covering five districts. Although in Collier, school board members are elected countywide, they must live in their districts.
They serve staggered four-year terms, overseeing 48,000 students in public schools, including charter schools.
Phil Fernandez, Laura Layden, Erica Van Buren and Andrea Stetson, contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Good, bad and ugly: The top stories of 2022
