Fort Myers, FL Seawall Repair

The awards really should be no surprise as Fort Myers is the center of a popular tourist area in Southwest Florida and the seat of Lee County. It is about 120 miles south of Tampa at the meeting point of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caloosahatchee River. Currently, Lee County is the spring home of the Boston Red Sox and the Minnesota Twins Major League Baseball teams for spring training.

Other attractions include beautiful Fort Myers Beach as well as Captiva and Sanibel Islands to the West. Wrap it all up in gorgeous weather with plenty to do and voila, you are in paradise! 

One problem plaguing some Fort Myers waterfront residents and businesses alike are maintaining seawalls. In 2017 hurricane Irma resulted in the collapse of hundreds of seawalls and millions of dollars in damages. Thankfully, hurricanes are relatively rare. The real problem for seawalls is consistent battering by waves, the rise and fall of the tides, occasional storms, the type of construction and the lack of maintenance.

Many homeowners in the Fort Myers Beach area do not realize their seawall needs a good inspection every year to be sure the wall is still 'working' as designed. Seawalls need to allow the tides and irrigation waters to flow onto and off of the property in an efficient way. When the wall is inefficient, pressure is greater on one side of the wall or the other which begins to test the construction of the wall. 

During an inspection, a Captiva Island resident should be looking for cracks in the cap, cracks in the vertical seawall panels, little potholes, or sinkholes along the inside of the wall, soil deposits on the outside of the wall near the seawall seams. If any of these symptoms exist, the resident or business owner should have a professional seawall company inspect the wall and recommend steps to remediate. Often these repairs are relatively simple including injecting a polyurethane resin into the soil near the wall to fill in any voids, strengthen the soil, and seal the wall. Often Florida Seawall Solutions installs jet filters to help the tidal ebb and flow through the wall as many walls in the Fort Myers area were not built with jet filters installed.

With all the beauty surrounding Fort Myers and Captiva Island, there are not too many downsides. However, if a seawall owner ignores the signs of seawall weakening, the price to save the situation will only get more expensive. Inspect your seawall. Do not wait until it is leaning one way or the other.