Island communities in Lee County, Fla.jilibet, endured another bruising overnight — almost two years to the day after Hurricane Ian killed dozens of people in the county and devastated Fort Myers Beach.

Even though Hurricane Helene made landfall hundreds of miles to the north, its storm surge inundated roads and gushed into buildings in Fort Myers Beach, which sits on a barrier island on the southwest Gulf Coast. Many of the damaged buildings were newly renovated or still in the process of being repaired.

“It’s just a mess,” said Becki Weber of Fort Myers Beach, who awoke to both storm water and sewage infiltrating her house. “I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad as it is.”

She had restored her waterfront home following Hurricane Ian and is looking at needing significant repair work all over again.

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“We’re back to square one,” she said. “At least this time we saved some of our clothes.”

This is the third storm since Ian to cause damage along Florida’s southwest Gulf Coast, said Mayor Dan Allers of Fort Myers Beach, and each one hampers recovery. Helene, he said, created as much mess as Hurricanes Debby and Idalia, which hit this August and last August, combined. Storm surge was recorded at about six feet, and it deposited sand mounds as high as three feet along Estero Boulevard, the main road spanning the seven-mile island.

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City crews planned to spend the next several days clearing roads. A Hurricane Ian “Remembrance and Resiliency Ceremony” that was scheduled for Saturday was canceled as the town once again focuses on recovery. Mr. Allers said he’s also looking into sewage problems, which residents from two areas of the island had reported.

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