One homeowner makes tough choice on family beach home

By NATHAN MAYBERG nmayberg@breezenewspapers com

Since the late 1920s, Patti Smith’s family vacationed on Fort Myers Beach at their Miramar Street cottage on the beach side of Estero Boulevard

While the family will always have those memories, the physical home they shared those times in is now gone bulldozed recently due to the damage from Hurricane Ian Smith had to make the difficult decision due to the high cost of rebuilding to the new hurricane codes.

“I went back and forth, back and forth I put business before my heart,” Smith said

Smith’s grandfather Henry Jennings bought the home in 1928, while taking a vacation with his wife May from their home in Tennessee

“We had no idea why he was there,” Smith said “We figured he did it for my grandmother He was not a beach guy ”

Smith, who grew up in Alabama, used to regularly visit the home for vacations after it was passed down to her mother Jeanette Smith admits that her early memories of going to the beach were “miserable There was nothing to do there” when she was growing up in the 1960s, she said. She remembers a 7-Eleven and a Dairy Queen After her mother died, her sister bought out the shares of her brothers for the ownership stake in the home Her sister maintained the home, replacing windows and the roof

About 15 years ago, the home was sold to a family from Wisconsin Smith, who lives in Manhattan, decided to take a vacation in Fort Myers Beach “on a whim” a few years ago and saw the cottage was for sale She visited the cottage with her brother and recognized old pictures, a vase, bowls, cabinets and furniture from when the home was in her family’s hands

A religious experience fell over Smith and she decided to buy it back An interior designer by profession, she did appreciate the cyprus wood that it was built out of now that she was older. “It was so charming inside,” she said. Smith said she had “no idea” why she felt compelled to buy it back, but felt as though she was sent there “to be enlightened” and to “find a resting place for myself ”

Smith renovated the home and started vacationing there and renting it out to others The cottage became popular as a vacation rental for its proximity to the beach During the COVID pandemic, she stayed at the cottage for about three months For the first two months of the pandemic, she said she was “petrified I didn’t know what would happen to my business ” When caution tape when up at the beach accesses, Smith would go out to the edge of the beach access points with a chair to read a book. “It was so awkward” not to be able to go on the beach, she said “It was the safest place to be ”

See

Before and after: Patti Smith’s Miramar Street cottage on the beach side of Estero Boulevard was a tear-down due to damage from Hurricane Ian.

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The aid is for the construction of emergency berms with 86,969 cubic yards of sand and 2 9 , 1 0 0 n a t i v e plants to stabilize the beach and protect it from a 5-year storm The work covers 28,000 linear feet of beach With this grant, FEMA public assistance funding for Lee County to date totals $35 9 million The total for all applicants within Lee County is $144 3 million

According to Jon Mills, spokesperson for FEMA, the agency has provided $79.9 million to the state of Florida for Fort Myers Beach since Hurricane Ian, as of April 11 Those include $65 8 million in debris removal projects, $7 6 million in e m e r g e n c y p r o t e c t i v e m e a s u r e s , $648,000 for the Fort Myers Beach Fire Control District Other reimbursement projects are being developed, Mills said F E M A p r o v i d e d $ 2 4 b i l l i o n f o r 28,000 flood insurance claims submitted in Lee County through since Hurricane Ian, as of April 11.

In addition, FEMA has paid $458 million in individual assistance to approximately 98,000 households in Lee County since Hurricane Ian

About 4,500 households in Fort Myers Beach have been granted approximately $70 million in individual aid Those funds include “temporary rental assistance, basic home repairs and other needs not covered by insurance,” Mills said

Statewide, more than $1 billion in individual assistance was approved by FEMA

See FEMA, page 12 e 3 n W e e k o f W e d n e s d a y , M a y 1 7 , 2 0 2 3 f o r t m y e r s b e a c h t a l k . c o m F o r t M y e r s B e a c h O b s e r v e r

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If there is one thing students of all ages look forward to, it’s summer.

Teachers, too, we suspect, though educators do see a down side and it’s a steep one

Call it summer slide, call it learning loss, call it what you will, students lose an estimated 2 to 2-1/2 months of learning especially in reading and math during the weeks they are out of school

This is not a new thing

But post-COVID and its months-long interruption of in-school instruction, and post-Ian with its weeks of disruption, our children are well behind the learning curve of where they should be

Through no fault of their own

Despite the efforts of Lee County’s teachers and the Lee County School District

This year’s “numbers” i e testing benchmarks have not yet been released but we know where we were after the return to “normalcy” following COVID but before Hurricane Ian damaged numerous schools throughout the district, destroying two and forcing students to shuffle to new or temporary classrooms.

Those numbers were not good

In fact, as we stated on these pages little more than a year ago, those numbers were abysmal

According to pre-test numbers released last March by the School District of Lee County, 56 percent of second graders kids who never got the benefit of a “normal” school year were performing at a kindergarten level in reading basics

Teachers had to start over fourth-quarter and teach kindergarten phonics to these struggling little guys because, as Teaching a n d L e a r n i n g D i r e c t o r D r B e t h a n y Quisenberry succinctly put it, “You need phonics to be able to read What we are seeing with first and second grade students is they are still unable to read.”

What the district also saw was significant drops in the number of children who met grade-level goals in reading, math and other subjects

The district recognizes that this may be another challenging year, not only in terms of new achievement scores, but for students who are trying their best, but are struggling

For far too many, struggling hard

Lee Schools is addressing the challenge with a wealth of opportunities that offers a concept well worth embracing: Summer school is for everyone

The district is offering a variety of summer learning opportunities for students this year ranging from free Scholastic books for elementary schoolers to face-to-face camps to virtual options for make-good or enrichment

All told, there are more than 30 camps a n d p r o g r a m s f o r s t u d e n t s f r o m p r e - K through 12th grade

They are taught by certified educators and offer “rigorous and engaging curriculum,” according to the school district website, leeschools net

The district urges parents to log onto their child’s student portal to check out what’s available

We do as well

In fact, we’ll throw in checking out the opportunities and programs at Lee County libraries as well.

Summer slide is real

And here in Lee County it’s a hot-metal reality with a burn that can carry over into the next school year and beyond

Students do look forward to summer

W e , a s p a r e n t s , g r a n d p a r e n t s a n d guardians, can help make them look forward to some fun summer learning, too