October 14, 2022 — Southwest Florida’s commercial fishing industry has been struggling for some time from the recent red tide and the graying out of the fleet. But now, Hurricane Ian has put the fishing industry on the ropes.
“Lee County’s seafood industry took a major hit,” said Casey Streeter, a commercial fisherman and the owner of Island Seafood Market on Matlacha.
Hurricane Ian’s powerful storm surge destroyed a large portion of Southwest Florida’s fishing industry from boats to docks to fish houses.
“Fort Myers beach, our shrimp fleet is decimated, that’s about a 200-million-dollar loss with what they do,” said Streeter. “Their boats are obviously tanged up onshore…Here on Pine Island, we lost four of our five fish houses. We lost many of the grouper boats. The infrastructure of our fishery is gone.”