Two beaches on Sanibel Island to reopen soon

SANIBEL ISLAND, Florida. Our beaches make up a big part of life here in southwest Florida, and many of you want to know when you can return to them after Hurricane Ian.

Well, now at least two beaches on Sanibel Island will open within a week.

“We are at day 125, I count every morning, and when I look at each day, I see the progress that we have made, it’s just incredible,” says Sanibel Mayor Holly Smith.

Everything about this process is incredible, from restoring the Sanibel Causeway to pumping our beaches here on Sanibel to try and get everything up and running as much as possible.

Mayor Holly Smith says it’s taken time and she’s very optimistic that at least two beaches will reopen here within a week… Tarpon Bay Beach and Blind Pass Beach.

“The eastern beaches had the biggest impact. So the lighthouse goes up like this, they have to take out a lot of this big debris, and they did some extra screening and we find a lot of smaller debris. so when these beaches are open, we want to make sure people are always still very careful,” Mayor Smith says.

Be careful, because there may still be dangers around. There are also concerns about the red tide.

“We had a flyover, I’m the director of national resources on Friday, and we really could see where the red tide impact was along our entire coastline. on the beach and you start feeling ticklish or whatever and then you realize it might not be the best time,” explains Mayor Smith.

And what will the area look like once it opens?

“I think it will be a little different in the sense that the city of Sanibel has never allowed any mechanical means to enter the beach to rake it, so it was a big decision for all of us, but when you have a catastrophic event like us, we knew that this would be an opportunity to clean it properly. You will see footprints that you have never seen before. Working to make it safe to access our beaches when you look back at the whole beach line is our apartments and you look back and you see a lot of damage done to condominium associations and I want to make sure people are really respectful when they go to the beach.”

Mayor Smith also says he encourages you to support as many businesses as possible, as many business owners are islanders trying to feed their families and keep employees working.