Fort Myers Beach Live Cam

Florida, known as the Sunshine State, is famous for its beaches, warm weather and palm trees. But you'll find much more here in the diverse communities that make up our state. From international businesses and large tourist attractions to small town coziness, quiet hideaways and a rich history, Florida has lots to offer every resident and visitor.

Southwest Florida and Lee County Is A Great Place For Your Business To: Expand, Relocate and Start Up new Operations.

We're the third fastest growing metro area in the United States. Current Lee County population is 377,000 compared to 205,000 in 1980. We have four cities -- Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach. Low cost of doing business -- minimal business taxes, cheap labor and affordable commercial and industrial real estate.

A healthy and abundant supply of skilled and semiskilled workers. An excellent business climate fostered by the Horizon Council, a 42-member public-private advisory board to the Lee County Commission on business retention and development. A proven public educational system with excellent job training programs soon to be enhanced by Florida's 10th State University, Florida Gulf Coast University, scheduled to open in Lee County in August 1997.

Excellent transportation systems including the completed Interstate 75 corridor connecting Southwest Florida to Tampa and Miami. A 20-year, $500-million expansion of Southwest Florida International Airport also is underway, which will double the size of the airport and add a midfield terminal and another runway. The airport's 12,000-foot runway and cargo facilities already can serve domestic and foreign destinations.

A great lifestyle with an excellent climate, magnificent beaches, superb natural resources and plentiful recreational opportunities.

Fort Myers, Florida -- population 45,495 -- is more than home to the Thomas Edison/Henry Ford Winter Estates and Boston Red Sox Spring Training. Downtown Fort Myers, with its concentration of city, county, state and federal offices, is the governmental center of Southwest Florida. It is also a major legal, business and finance district. Outstanding office space locations exist in modern office towers as well as quaint historic structures. An emerging entertainment district offers exciting opportunities for specialty retail, restaurant and entertainment related businesses in the downtown historic district.

Hurricanes and Southwest Florida

The analysis of hurricane probability is based upon historical occurrences in Southwest Florida, as evidenced in data available from the National Climatic Center, Asheville, North Carolina; the National Hurricane Center, Coral Gables, Florida; and the Fort Myers and Tampa Area Offices of National Weather Service.

A hurricane is defined as a tropical storm with sustained winds equaling ro exceeding seventy-four miles per hour (approximately 64.3 knots). Seventeen hurricanes passed within fifty miles of Fort Myers, averaging one every seven years. For the fifty-to-one-hundred-mile radius from Fort Myers, an additional thirty-two hurricanes passed by and through the Region at a rate of one every two and one-half years. Based on this information, using a one-hundred-mile radius as a minimum distance for issuing hurricane warnings, Southwest Florida can expect to receive such warnings once every two and one-half years. Of course, deviations can occur. During the 1985 hurricane season, for example, two warnings were issued in Southwest Florida.

The period of greatest hurricane frequency in Southwest Florida is the three-month period from August to October, when 90 percent of all hurricanes passed within 100 nautical miles of Fort Myers (the center point of reference) have historically occurred. September is the worst single-month period for hurricanes in the Region.

Such storms passed within one hundred miles of Fort Myers on the average of once every fine and one-half years form 1973 to 1993. The last hurricane to make landfall in Southwest Florida was Hurricane Donna. This storm had winds averaging nearly 135 miles per hour. Donna passed directly over Fort Myers Beach and Fort Myers on September 10, 1960. Hurricane Andrew was the last hurricane to cross the Region from the east, passing south of Naples in 1992.

The purpose of this update is to refine and improve upon the work initially performed in the Regional Hurricane Evacuation Plan, SWFRPC, 1982, and the Hurricane Evacuation Plan, Update 82, SWFRPC, 1984 and 1987. Also, in 1990 the National Hurricane Center revised the SLOSH (Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) model. One significant change to the model was the inclusion of a strong tropical storm scenario, a different category one storm parameter and the factors for determining how additional structures such as 1-75 affect the extent of inland flood levels.

Because of these changes and other changes to the model, it required redrawing all the storm surge lines by category hurricane and thus all evacuation zones. The major change in this update is a reevaluation of the nature of the threat due to the SLOSH update, based upon the Atlas prepared for each coastal county. Further, the inland counties are provided an assessment of through traffic flow from coastal evacuating counties.

This section will update the revised SLOSH model work analyzing hurricanes performed in 1990. Also, the Behavioral Survey Results of the I I planning regions has been updated and includes statewide surveys from Florida International University.

Each of the six counties will be assessed as to the degree of the hurricane threat that affects them. Vulnerability zones will be reassessed, population data will be updated for 1995 and forecasted to 1998, behavioral information will be applied, shelter data updated, evacuation routes reassessed, and clearance times calculated.

The County data will be summarized for their relevance to inter-county action. Specific analysis will be performed on inter-county travel volume and routes.

This section examines alternatives to certain approaches taken in Parts II (Counties) and III (Regional section with Summary) and the impacts these alternatives would have. This also provides assumptions or critical actions that local and other governments agencies should undertake to improve evacuation times.

This section is a three-region assessment: South Florida, Southwest Florida and Central Florida regions. The multi-regional analysis is an assessment of traffic and shelter impacts. These are the issues that can be coordinated between regions and the, counties that compose those regions.

The Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, Health Program Office is the State Agency with responsibility for the registration of mobile home and recreational vehicle parks. The Health Program Office uses registrants' information to inventory potable water and wastewater facilities contained within the various parks. The information is available to the general public, or other agencies, for a and is produced in the form of the lists contained in this section (one list for each county in the state).

There are certain high interest aspects of evacuations which the different County chapters and regional summary assume as actions. These include the response of tourists, the impact on highways of "truck" traffic, which includes high profile and recreational vehicles, and the impact of rainfall and hurricane wind and flood waters on road capacities. The County sections, regional summary, and critique sections also address the subject of mobilization times, background traffic, and "slow" versus quick" highway activity.