Minnesota snowbirds dealing with hurricane damage again as storms batter Florida

Many Minnesotans who have homes in Florida escaped the worst of the damage from the latest hurricane to batter the Southeast coast.

Hurricane Milton, which made landfall Wednesday, killed at least 10 people. The storm, predicted to be a Category 5, weakened to Category 3 but had sustained winds of 120 mph. It also arrived in Florida just one week after Category 4 Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 230 people across several states, according to the Associated Press.

A large contingent of Minnesota snowbirds who live in Naples, Fla. — about two hours south of Sarasota, which bore the hurricane head on — did not see as much destruction as storms from years past, said Mike Schumann, who resides in St. Louis Park during Minnesota’s warm months. Florida has long attracted Minnesotans for its warm winters and spring training baseball, as the Minnesota Twins train in Fort Myers, on the Gulf Coast and about a 45-minute drive from Naples.

As Schumann traveled on a long-planned trip to Germany during the storm, his home and furniture store in Naples were at the top of his mind. Schumann streamed a local news station based in Naples and received updates from his neighbors who decided to hunker down and brave the storm.

“We were on pins and needles all night,” he said the day after the storm. “My neighbors were kind of crazy to try to ride this one out. But based on the pictures they sent us of our home, this was not as bad.”

Schumann, who was on his way back to Minnesota from his trip, said he was going to wait until the power was back on and hurricane relief efforts settled down before goes to check on the state of his properties.

“We got really lucky,” he said. “A lot of people thought it was going to be significantly worse than it was.”

Naples, once described as “a warm Edina,” has such a large Minnesota population that in the 1960s Minnesotans formed a weekly winter breakfast club that still meets with Minnesota politicians and CEOs.

Snowbird Mark Davis, who travels between Florida and Mankato, was in the midst rebuilding his home in Fort Myers when Hurricane Milton hit. His home was swept away in 2022, when Category 4 Hurricane Ian made a direct hit to the town. In that storm, winds clocked in just short of a Category 5 storm, according to the local government’s website.

Davis has plans to continue building his home that involves constructing it 17 feet off the ground.

“I look at the Gulf, and I like the weather,” Davis said of his property, adding he also enjoys the proximity to the Twins.

The MLB team’s spring training facility, Hammond Stadium, had minor water infiltration but was otherwise in good shape, according to a team spokesman. First responders are using the complex as a staging area, as they did two years ago after Hurricane Ian tore through the town.

For Schumann, he’s not sure if he’d want to rebuild his home if a hurricane tore it down. In 2022, he relocated his Fort Myers furniture store to a location that was 1½ feet higher after the old property flooded during Hurricane Ian. During that storm, his garage also flooded about 10 inches.

“If we had gotten flooded out this time, we’d have a serious discussion about our options. Inland or back to Minnesota,” Schumann said. “We love Naples, but I’m not in a mood of rebuilding and another five years, I’ll in the same boat again. Something has to give as sea levels are rising and the storms are getting bigger.”

Staff writers Chris Magan and Phil Miller contributed to this report.