After Irma flood, home buyout program offered in Bonita Springs

Reporter: Emma Heaton Writer: Melissa Montoya
Published: Updated:
After Irma flooded Bonita Springs in 2017, the federal government gave the city $5 million to buy the affected homes. (CREDIT: WINK News)

The flood damage in Bonita Springs during Irma in 2017 was so bad the federal government sent the city $5 million to make sure the same damage wouldn’t occur again.

The program was supposed to be used to buy homes that suffered severe flooding, but five years later, the city has only purchased three homes. The city is supposed to buy them at market value.

But Bonita Springs leaders hope to buy many more and they have until 2025, when the program ends, to do so.

Category 3 storm Irma hit Southwest Florida hard, and lots of people suffered. The hurricane dropped so much rain that the Imperial River overflowed into one neighborhood.

After Irma flooded Bonita Springs in 2017, the federal government gave the city $5 million to buy the affected homes. (CREDIT: WINK News)

All Beatriz Perez could do is float through the floodwaters.

“All these houses were flooded. You know, we went in through with a little boat. We went inside of houses and the streets and it was flooded,” she said.

The water reached her second step.

Perez said she attended the meetings on the buyout program but she is not ready to leave her home.

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