Cape Coral damage assessment and recovery update: Q&A with City Manager Rob Hernandez

The News-Press spoke with Cape Coral City Manager Rob Hernandez to discuss Hurricane Ian and how Cape Coral's recovery effort is going.

Here’s what Hernandez had to say about damages, the progress with electricity, infrastructure, and water and sewer.

Q: What is the extent of damage in Cape Coral?

A: So the damage is quite extensive. It kind of varies throughout the city. What I have seen throughout the city is wind damage all over. In the northwest and northeast predominantly missing shingles, fence damage, and damage to home water treatment systems. But rather than, for the residential homes, complete loss of the roof covering, I'm just seeing sporadic tiles missing.

Whereas when you go down into the southwest and southeast part of the city, I'm seeing complete roof losses. Some of the commercial structures throughout the city have taken significant damage to the roofs, schools for example. The one right next door to Cape Tech, that roof is shot. I think the roof at Cape Coral High School is shot. A couple of businesses in the industrial park buildings are shot. When you factor in the water damage that you see mostly in the southwest, in the southeast, it's bad.

We didn't have all of those structural collapses that you might find out on the barrier islands because I think our construction is newer, but we have damage. It's a lot. A lot of damage. I spent most of the day today concentrating on about a half-square-mile, half-square-mile grid, there's tons of debris just in those eight or nine blocks that I was in today. Just tons and tons and a lot of roof damage and people's furniture got damaged, so it's extensive.

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Q: Has a damage assessment been made? When will this information be ready?

A: The first focus was on the initial assessment, that's like a windshield survey, and that was completed two days ago, and we were I believe at 100%. That requires people driving around their pre-assigned zones and going out and doing what's called a windshield survey because they're eyeballing, they're visualizing.

I can tell that building right there lost its roof and its significant damage, so we grade it as no damage, minor damage, and major damage. We do have that information and then our folks are going out and doing more comprehensive inspections and those aren't done yet. And that won't be done for a while.

I don't know if that information is subject to disclosure.

Q: What is the status of traffic lights working? Who is working on this? What is being done?

A: It's getting better, getting much better. I would say if I had to give, put a percentage on it, and this is just a guess, I would say that we're probably between 65% and 70% back online. And so it's a combination of city employees, Lee County, and our out-of-town contractors. We're doing a variety of things including powering signals on generators and replacing signals, the county has replaced several of them along Del Prado Boulevard that was destroyed during the storm, so those are up and running.

Veterans (Parkway signals), I believe, are now completely up and running. I know FDOT replaced or repaired all the signals along Pine Island Road, so that's a bright spot. We're almost at the finish line in terms of immediate restoration, and then you can tell they're coming back. These are interim steps to get the signals working, and then they'll be coming back with permanent replacements.

Q: What is the status of power outages and what is the city doing to speed up the restoration process?

A: As of this morning (Oct. 6), we have 25,758 customers with power restored out of about 94,000. A little less than 30%. I was out there today in the field, they have armies of crews out there working. You'll have to get an actual number from LCEC, but whatever we can do to facilitate LCEC's work we're assisting them.

We provide their convoys escorts every morning, so they don't have to get tied up in traffic because they're based out of Lee Civic Center, and so we go out there at 6 o'clock every morning and we escort the crews in, and that's the extent of our work with them. I mean, they're their standalone entity.

They don't need a whole lot from us. We're also working with FPL, and we've provided FPL with a staging area. They have a mini-city built there, and then when FPL is done with the work they're doing in Fort Myers, those crews are going to be available to assist LCEC.

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Q: What is the snag in rescinding boil water notices? Other jurisdictions have done so by now, why not the Cape? What is the city doing to get the water distribution system up and running?

A: The health department is requiring us to do a month's worth of sampling in a day. That's 120 samples a day, and we have to have two samples, meaning we do a sample today, a sample tomorrow, and then we have to wait until the test results come back. So then the earliest would be sometime late tomorrow, and if all of them come back clean, meaning that there's no bacteria or whatever, then we can lift it.

(Spokeswoman Melissa Mickey later clarified that the 120 samplings came back with their first negative Oct. 6.)

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Q: What is the status of the city's reverse osmosis plants? What is the city doing to get them working at 100%?

A: They are not at 100% quite yet. The north R/O plant as of this morning was partially energized. We're producing about 6,000 gallons per minute, but the north R/O is not fully restored. It does not have 100% power, and so it does not have all of its what they call treatment trains up and running, due to lack of power. Now the south R/O, though it sustained damage, seems to me to be fully operational. We are producing more water than is being demanded.

Q: What is the status of the city's sewer lift stations? How many are still without power? How many sewage overflows has the city had? What is the city doing to get them back online?

A: About 10% right now are without power. That's a huge improvement over where we were yesterday, so as of this morning (Oct. 6), 90% are either on power or on generators. We have requested generators. We have been receiving generators every day.

Luis Zambrano is a Watchdog/Cape Coral reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. You can reach Luis at Lzambrano@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Lz2official.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Hurricane Ian: Cape Coral City Manager Rob Hernandez Q&A