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City of Fort Myers emergency management office reviews 2025 hurricane season, recovery work and FEMA closeouts
Summary
The city's emergency management division reported that the 2025 hurricane season produced five hurricanes (four major), described preparedness steps taken during a relatively quiet season, and outlined recovery and FEMA closeout timelines for past storms including Hurricane Ian.
Jennifer Schmidt, a member of the Division of Emergency Management, told the City of Fort Myers council that the 2025 hurricane season produced five hurricanes, four of which qualified as major storms. "Today is December 1, so it is the the first day out of hurricane season," Schmidt said as she opened the presentation. She said forecasters predicted 8–11 storms and four to six major hurricanes; the city experienced fewer storms overall but matched the forecast for major storms.
Schmidt said the quieter season allowed staff to focus on preparedness and recovery work. She described city efforts including a hurricane-preparedness expo that drew 67 partner organizations, the launch of a city emergency-management mobile app with push-notification capability, an internal Storm Ready fair for staff training and the city’s first functional EOC exercise. "We also conducted the city's first EOC functional exercise to again validate those activation, processes and procedures," she said.
On recovery, Schmidt reported progress closing projects tied to past storms. The city submitted 12 projects for Hurricane Irma totaling more than $3,000,000 in damages and is working on validation and reconciliation for roughly $21,000,000 in payments. She said FEMA audits and document uploads have been substantial: "We have processed and uploaded over 700 unique documents and requests from FEMA" for one event and "over 2,500 documents and requests" for another. For remaining Hurricane Ian work and other open projects, staff set target close-out windows in the first and second quarters of the coming year.
Schmidt also described partnership work on a Yacht Basin Project intended to attract more than $8,000,000 in alternate funding for related infrastructure and vessel removal permitting that clears the way for removals. She noted the work proceeded despite several FEMA representative changes that slowed timelines.
Why it matters: The update signals the city’s multi-year recovery workload and clarifies expected timelines for FEMA project closeouts and grant reconciliations, which affect city budgets and capital work schedules moving into next year.
Council members had no further questions at the meeting and accepted the report. The manager and emergency-management staff said they will continue outreach and updates to the council as closeouts proceed.
