Fort Myers Beach residents, business owners, and hired contractors return to island

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — Fort Myers Beach residents, business owners, and hired contractors are allowed to return to the island on Wednesday.

For the past two days access has been restricted to emergency personnel only.

This is the schedule officials rolled out to help speed up the recovery process from Hurricane Ian.

Still a lot of damage out here on Fort M.yers Beach, and that’s the reason why residents will only have access to the beach on certain days.

Mondays and Tuesdays are only for those deemed as emergency personnel.

Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. are for people to cross one of the bridges that call Fort Myers Beach home.

We gave you a first look at the catastrophic damage on Fort Myers Beach in the days following Hurricane Ian, once residents were allowed to visit their properties on the beach for the first time.

The idea behind the new schedule is to help kick-start the cleanup process and to make it easier for recovery efforts.