Milton floods islands; access to Captiva cut off again
Hurricane Milton made landfall on Oct. 9 as a Category 3 north of the islands near Siesta Key in Sarasota County, but Sanibel and Captiva again felt the impacts from storm surge and more.
Less than two weeks prior when Hurricane Helene came onshore in the Big Bend area, flooding and debris on the mainland side of the Sanibel Causeway forced a temporary closure of McGregor Boulevard leading up to the toll plaza and later the bridge itself, essentially cutting off the islands. In addition, sand, rocks and debris piled up on the road at Blind Pass severed Captiva from Sanibel.
While the causeway was traversable this time for emergency responders once the debris was cleared, Milton damaged Captiva’s sole connection — and evacuation route — to its sister island. It washed out one side of the Blind Pass Bridge, rendering it impassable. It took over a day of repairs to open it up.
“The island was not accessible by traditional vehicles due to debris, a large amount of sand and road destruction caused by washouts,” Captiva Island Fire Control District Fire Chief Jeff Pawul said. “Blind Pass had a large washout near the newly constructed seawall. We were concerned about losing that section of the road after Helene because it was not repaired.”
Also not fortified since the last storm, Captiva Drive south of Jensen’s on the Gulf took a big hit.
“We were already concerned about those areas and those concerns came to fruition,” he said.
Pawul estimated that the island received about 6 feet of storm surge versus about 5 feet in Helene.
“Based on our observations during search-and-rescue and the water lines on the majority of houses, most of the houses had some level of surge in them,” he said, noting that the older cottage-style homes took in 3-4 feet, while some newer elevated homes or those on pilings saw the same at ground level.
“There was definitely a lot more damage to properties from this storm than from (Hurricane) Ian or Helene. Damage wise and surge wise, we’re seeing worse levels,” Pawul added. “I’d say that is probably most evident by what The Mucky Duck looks like.”
The Gulf-front restaurant sustained major damages, including losing a portion of its building.
Prior to Ian, the Captiva Island Erosion Prevention had completed its routine beach renourishment, which entails adding sand to the shoreline and building up the dune system. Following the 2022 storm, officials credited the dune system for mitigating a lot of the wave action and surge that Sanibel had.
However, much of the dune system was lost in Ian — what little was left, Helene finished off.
“The island was exposed and vulnerable. I would say that’s what happened,” Pawul said of Milton.
He explained that the district had evacuated and upon returning — initially via side-by-side — there was standing water, sand and debris covering everything, and areas washed out and destroyed.
“There wasn’t a part that wasn’t untouched,” Pawul said. “That’s all the way through to South Seas.”
On Captiva’s sister island, Sanibel Fire and Rescue District Fire Chief Kevin Barbot estimated that Sanibel received an average of 12-18 inches more storm surge in Milton than it did in Helene.
“With it hitting pretty far north of us, the east end of the island seemed to fare OK compared to the west end,” he said, explaining that the damages and heavy flooding were more evident traveling west.
“You could see the impacts through to Captiva,” Barbot added.
The Gulfside of Sanibel also saw surge and overtopped sand from the beach.
“West Gulf Drive was pretty much impassable for quite some time. Saw some pretty big issues near Bowman’s Beach and at Blind Pass,” he said. “It took a while for the water to start receding.”
The Sanibel district also had evacuated. It returned to the island in the early morning hours before dawn and had to maneuver through over 2 feet of water to get back to the fire station on Palm Ridge Road.
“There was still a lot of water,” Barbot said.
“We did have water get into homes, into garages,” he added. “Anything that was a lower level or single-story home, they definitely got water into their house.”
Barbot pointed out that Helene had impacted the island less than two weeks earlier.
“Everything was very saturated, so when Hurricane Milton came around, there was no sopping up of the water,” he said. “It was water sitting on top of water that had been there for the last 10 days.”
“The island was not safe,” he added of the city not allowing the community to return immediately.
As for emergency calls, the Captiva crew responded to a fire as soon as it returned.
“The initial one was a structure fire for two buildings, four units, in Ventura Captiva that occurred during the storm and was still burning and threatening another structure when we got to it,” Pawul said of the Captiva Drive residences. “We were able to mitigate and save that structure from going up.”
The two buildings were unoccupied and a total loss.
The Sanibel crew also responded to a structure fire as soon as it arrived. A call came in during the storm about a large home in Clam Bayou. When the crew arrived, they took care of hot spots.
Again, the structure was unoccupied and a total loss.