FLOOD-TESTED: North Fort Myers family’s surge defenses hold strong during Milton

Before Hurricane Milton hit, I was in Lochmoor Waterway Estates showing you how people were gearing up to face the storm.

As Fox 4’s North Fort Myers Community Correspondent, I work in this area daily, so I went back to see how the neighborhood weathered the storm, and I talked to a family that battled to keep the surge out of their house.
Watch my report here...

The day before Hurricane Milton came through, I saw homeowners using a high-powered torch to fuse flood barriers to their home, and all over, people were shuttering up, stacking sandbags, and sealing doors.

Bernadette Nostrum and her husband’s home flooded during Hurricane Helene, leaving the drywall torn out. So this time, she said they went the extra mile to prevent more damage.

“During Helene, it actually showed us where the failure points of the house were,” said Nystrom.

Austin Schargorodski

Inside the home’s garage, you could see waterlines left over from past hurricanes. A three foot high one marked Hurricane Ian’s devastating storm surge, and one below a bit over a foot high showed Helene’s effect on the home. Despite 21 inches of storm surge from Milton, there was no line - here’s why.

“We sandbagged and put water dams up and tacked it to the wall. We also took it one step further and over sealed the interior. We went throug hall the cracks and all the seams of not only the slider doors on the interior, but any seam on the junction of the concrete to the walls, the wood baseboards, anything like that we went and put caulking,” Nystrom explained.

Austin Schargorodski

Nostrum told me her husband even set up water pumps around the house, ready to kick in if water got inside. Once everything was in place, all they could do was wait and hope for the best.

The next day, during the peak of Hurricane Milton, nearly two feet of storm surge flooded the neighborhood, and one of their pumps was blasting water out of the house. Thanks to all their prep, Nostrum said only four inches made it inside, and it was pumped out fast.

Bernadette Nystrom

“I think we’re in pretty good shape. So, that’s what it takes,” said Nostrum.

However, Nystrom said she doesn’t want to go through this with every big storm. Now, her father-in-law, Nils Nystrom, said they’re facing a touch choice: lift the house like many neighbors are doing, or move away?

Austin Schargorodski

“It’s a good place to live. It’s a phenomenal sub-division. So, we might decide to lift the house and stay. But then, that still leaves us with a problem of flooding streets. There are problems that can’t be handled by the individual homeowner,” said Nils.

Now, as the family works to restore their home, they’re hoping for a long-term drainage solution for the neighborhood.

Austin Schargorodski