Tornado

On any given day before Hurricane Ian neighbors parked their golf carts in front of Douglas Loria’s trailer at the Tropicana 55-plus mobile home community. The days were often sunny. The breeze often light.The conversations would go on and on.“It’s a wonderful community if you like talking to people all the time,” Loria said. “They go by and say ‘hi’ and you know, you drop what you’re doing and talk fifteen, twenty minutes, half an hour.

The center of Ian is forecast to move over central Florida Wednesday night and Thursday morning and emerge over the western Atlantic by late Thursday.

The proximity of and impacts from Hurricane Ian were cause for alerts about tornadoes earlier Tuesday.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has approved Florida’s request for a disaster declaration stemming from tornadoes that touched down in Southwest Florida in January. The declaration opens the door for impacted residents and businesses to apply for SBA disaster loans.

$300,000 in grant funding from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity was approved to aid Lee County residents who were impacted by the tornadoes on January 16th. The funding was approved Wednesday at the Lee County Board of County Commissioners meeting. The funding will go towards vendors who will help repair home damages from the tornadoes.

Gov. DeSantis announces the allocation of $10,000 checks to 43 victims whose homes were destroyed or damaged with tornadoes touched down in Lee and Charlotte Counties in January, as the state continues to appeal FEMA's denial of individual assistance for victims.

Governor Ron DeSantis was in Fort Myers Friday morning to address ongoing recovery efforts stemming from damage sustained when tornadoes touched down in Southwest Florida in January. Florida plans to appeal a denial of the state’s request for federal aid.

National Weather Service forecasters confirmed over the weekend that a sixth tornado touched down in Southwest Florida the morning of Jan. 16.

Lee County officials estimate about $1.1 million dollars in damages with more than one hundred mobile homes damaged and some 30 mobile homes destroyed. This was just one of a number of tornadoes that touched down across Southwest Florida on Sunday as a massive cold front moved across the state.