One Everglades City, Florida resident has died and another contracted a leg infection requiring amputation after wading in sewage-contaminated floodwaters left behind by Hurricane Irma, which battered the small fishing community with 140-mile-an-hour winds and inundated it with an 8-to-10-foot storm surge on 10 September 2017.
According to local press reports, 82-year-old Lee Marteeny died at Physicians Regional Hospital after treatment for respiratory failure and internal bleeding. Though a cause of death has not yet been established, a spokesperson for the county medical examiner’s office
told the
Naples Daily News it was “storm-related.” Other, less serious instances of infection have also been reported.
Sewage system overflows were
reported all over Collier County in the days immediately following the hurricane, and tests conducted by Collier County Pollution Control on 17 September confirmed the presence of extremely high levels (“too numerous to count”) of fecal coliform and E. coli bacteria in the floodwaters that still surround much of Everglades City. Local residents remain under
notice to boil all drinking water and many have lined up to receive tetanus shots and precautionary treatment for infections at a temporary medical clinic set up at the Everglades City school.
Although an inspection of the Everglades City sewage treatment plant a few days after the storm found no substantial damage, a state Department of Environmental Protection official told Naples Daily News, it had not been conclusively determined whether or to what degree the “troubled” sewage plant, which the city was already under court orders to repair or rebuild, contributed to the bacterial contamination of the water.
As one of the Florida communities hardest hit by Hurricane Irma, Everglades City was still without power and running water when Gov. Rick Scott
visited to survey the damage on 17 September, noting that the floodwaters were still very high and housing is a “significant issue” for local residents. According to Everglades City Mayor Howie Grimm, in fact, two-thirds of the city’s homes and buildings are now
uninhabitable and there are no overnight shelters in the immediate vicinity, meaning that many local residents are stuck in housing contaminated with raw sewage and mold.
