
10 minute read
Racing to Restore Island Access
HOW FDOT, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS REOPENED SANIBEL CAUSEWAY AFTER IAN
BY JOE VANHOOSE
The effects of Hurricane Ian were devastating for much of Florida. Lee County, which includes Ft. Myers, Cape Coral and a handful of barrier islands, took the hardest hit. The hurricane was responsible for at least 149 deaths in the state, with 72 of those fatalities in Lee.
The combination of wind and storm surge flattened neighborhoods, flooded infrastructure and knocked out an entire section of the Sanibel Causeway, a three-mile, locally-owned bridge that serves as the only connection with the nearby Fort Myers-Cape Coral area on the Florida mainland.
With the road destroyed, the 12-mile barrier island with nearly 6,500 full-time residents could only be reached by boat or helicopter.
It would take a herculean effort to make the causeway passable for emergency responders, much less for local traffic. But the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and a quickly-assembled project team were ready to respond.
Jaw-Dropping Damage
As Ian approached Florida’s Gulf Coast, initial projections focused on a landfall near Tampa Bay. Superior Construction Division Manager Ryan Hamrick worked with his Tampa-based teams to secure their job sites and get their personal affairs in order. Many Superior employees, including Hamrick, were evacuated and left their homes.
But as Ian approached the coast, its trajectory shifted further south, right toward Lee County and Ft. Myers. The storm hit Sanibel Island head-on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2022 with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph, tying the record for the fifthstrongest hurricane on record to strike the United States.
Ian was the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida since Michael in 2018 and the first Category 4 hurricane to impact Southwest Florida since Charley in 2004. An unprecedented storm surge of 12 to 18 feet was reported along the southwestern Florida coast. Fort Myers itself was hit particularly hard with a 7.26 foot surge – also a record high.
“We found out pretty quickly that there was substantial damage done to that part of Lee County, Sanibel Island specifically,” Hamrick said. “Knowing the area, I called around and let (officials) know we were here and ready to help.”
FDOT had suspended tolls and pre-staged equipment and teams before Ian made landfall. Those teams sprang into action as soon as the storm passed to provide first responders, suppliers, emergency repair personnel and utility restoration teams safe access to impacted areas.
Kati Sherrard, PE, CPM, the corridors program engineer for FDOT District 1, arrived at the agency’s command center and began assessing the damage.
“It was clear on Day One, when people and equipment began to mobilize,” she remembered. “We all shared a common goal, and that was to restore vehicular access to Sanibel and Captiva islands. People began working and equipment began operation from the moment of arrival.
“It was evident that so many people from the FDOT, Lee County, the City of Sanibel and numerous other agencies were working tirelessly off-site to provide much needed support in whatever ways they were capable.”
Hamrick and his team met with FDOT the following day, less than 48 hours after the storm blew through. They arrived off Sanibel Island via boat, as whole sections of the causeway had collapsed during the storm.
“We spent all weekend with FDOT officials walking around the causeway and assessing what happened,” Hamrick said. “Really, we were picking our jaws off the ground looking at all the damage.
“It was quiet. You had a lot of time to think about what you could do and how long it would take.”
No one thought it would only take 15 days.
Racing to Respond
Hours after Ian had passed, conversations were well underway – reaching all the way to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office – on how the causeway could be quickly repaired for emergency use. A design-build contract was put out, and letters were coming in within 24 hours.
By the following Tuesday, the contract was awarded to Kisinger Campo & Associates (KCA) and a joint venture between the de Moya Group and Superior Construction for repairs to the causeway. Hardesty & Hanover played a major role in the causeway redesign with KCA, Sherrard said, while RS&H and Ajax Paving were design-build partners for the roadway.
“We identified our needs and brought in the best of the best,” Sherrard said.
Crews came together to start work on Oct. 5 with an audacious goal: to reopen the causeway three weeks later.
To accomplish this, FDOT implemented a 24-hour, 7-days-per-week work schedule and positioned management personnel onsite at all times. Pride and egos were checked at the door, Hamrick said.
“The project manager for FDOT moved mountains to get them out of our way,” he said. “We did nothing but produce progress every hour of every day we were working for two weeks.
“You can’t bring in 7,000 loads of embankment in 11 days unless that sort of thing happens, especially given the situation the area was in.”
Traffic signals were still out and the nearby roads were a mess. There was nowhere to eat or stay. Several people on the team lived onsite or rented temporary housing nearby.
Sherrard was able to catch a few hours of sleep in an RV, as long as she continued to hear the sound of dump trucks as they arrived on-site – the continued sound of dump trucks meant progress, and progress meant she could catch a little rest.
Living on-site during the emergency repairs will forever be one of her most cherished memories.
“It’s a memory full of joy and sadness, energy and exhaustion, coordination and chaos,” Sherrard said. “I felt like I was living in a bubble of sorts, as I was not able to watch the news or have long conversations with my loved ones. For 15 days my entire world consisted of what was happening in this bubble.”
Sherrard and the FDOT team worked to address any potential issues contractors foresaw and flagged traffic to ensure the arrival of construction equipment and materials were not delayed by others working in the same area.
FDOT established staging sites and traffic patterns for disaster relief vehicles and equipment trying to get to Sanibel, which would sometimes have to wait over eight hours before being able to load on a barge that was located at the boat ramp near the base camp.
“Everything was stacked against you, but because of the people working together onsite with a ‘we can get this done’ attitude, that’s how it all came together,” Hamrick said.
On the second day of work, Sherrard experienced an overwhelming sense of excitement mixed with disbelief, as her team walked across Sanibel A Bridge to Island A. On the third, she stood on the causeway and watched the sunset at the edge of the 800-foot channel caused by the hurricane on Island A.

Portions of the Sanibel Causeway collapsed following Hurricane Ian.
Photo courtesy of Ryan Hamrick, Superior Construction
“I was flooded with emotion,” she said. “I was thankful to experience so much beauty through all of the destruction and thankful for the opportunity to be a part of an incredible team that would accomplish what looked like the impossible, and close the gap by daybreak the next morning.”
An Early Reopening
On Oct. 11, less than a week into working on the project, Sherrard led a utility convoy across the temporary roadway put in place. The convoy expedited the arrival of much-needed support to Sanibel and Captiva islands.
“Being greeted and celebrated as we arrived on Sanibel, by people who have just experienced so much sadness and destruction, brought me to tears,” Sherrard said. “And it also gave me a much needed adrenaline rush to keep pushing towards our goal.”
Hundreds of electrical and utility workers, Publix grocery trucks, Army Corps of Engineers vehicles and more were able to get across the causeway. Two large FDOT trucks packed full of supplies were some of the first vehicles across to reach the community. FDOT provided and distributed over 250 coolers, 16,000 pounds of ice and almost 22,000 bottles of water.
With emergency personnel able to cross, the construction team needed another week to get the structures more stabilized and open to the public.
During the emergency repairs, around 100 crew members worked on-site each day, totaling more than 36,000 workforce hours. Material used totaled 8,200 loads of fill dirt, 2,400 loads of rock, and 4,000 tons of asphalt. More than 70 pieces of heavy machinery, including 4 barges and 7 cranes, operated daily.
The project team on the $100-million emergency effort still had to navigate around power outages, a lack of cell phone service and shuttered businesses limiting supplies and food. They just kept working.
“The phrase ‘I can’t’ or ‘We can’t’ wasn’t allowed to be used,” Hamrick said. “We were all in this together, and we worked together nonstop to get the causeway restored.”
Fifteen days into the project, Sherrard drove to the law enforcement checkpoint a mile before the causeway to let safety officials know the route was ready for civilian traffic.
“As I was getting close, that is when I noticed there were so many people waiting to be granted access, I could not even tell how far the line of vehicles extended,” she said. “These people were all anxiously waiting to see if they even had anything left, yet they were standing outside their vehicles with signs and balloons, so thankful for what we had done.”
On Oct. 19, just three weeks after Hurricane Ian washed away the land and roadway connecting the mainland to Sanibel and Captiva islands, and a week ahead of schedule, FDOT opened the bridge to first responders, utility crews, contractors and residents.
The causeway has been open ever since.
Permanent Repairs Underway
The Pine Island bridge repairs are expected to be completed by fall of 2023 and are estimated to cost $25 million when completed, the Governor’s office reported in March. Likewise, permanent repairs to the Sanibel Causeway will be complete by the end of this year and are estimated to cost a total of $350 million when complete.
FDOT drafted a scope of work based on recommendations of industry experts and professional engineers, offering suggestions for permanent repairs regarding resiliency, aesthetics and functionality of the causeway islands. The plan entails building the roadway to standards and specifications, constructing permanent bridge approaches, and restoring drainage, lighting and pavement markings, as well as providing access for utility service along the causeway islands.
Lee County will ultimately make the decision on what elements of the proposed design are incorporated into the permanent repairs and FDOT will provide support as needed.
Sheet pile walls with aesthetic treatments are replacing mechanically-stabilized earth (MSE) walls. Underground armoring is being considered for locations along the roadway on the causeway islands to better protect against storm surge.
FDOT is not just looking at the gray infrastructure improvements for the area, instead opting for a holistic approach that considers green infrastructure for added resiliency, Sherrard said. Several resiliency measures are included in the 30-percent design plans.
“We saw that native Florida plants and natural infrastructure protected a lot of areas and properties if it was in place prior to the storm,” she said. “So we are looking at including green infrastructure to balance the gray and using that green infrastructure as additional resiliency measures to protect the islands themselves when another storm comes through.”
The end-of-year goal for finishing permanent repairs will take another herculean effort to realize. Then again, Sherrard has already seen what that kind of effort looks like.
And how important the work is.