Three years after Hurricane Ian slammed into Fort Myers Beach, jackhammers still echo along the barrier island's main road, where new houses and businesses are going up next to vacant lots and the shells of buildings gutted by the storm.

"We are nowhere near where we thought we would be three years ago today," says Jacki Liszak, chief executive of the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce, who owned a small hotel that the hurricane washed away. "I don't think we understood what happened to us — the extent of it."

Ryan Kellman / NPR / NPR

The town emerging from the storm's aftermath could be out of reach financially for many who called it home before. Sky-high costs for construction and property insurance now threaten to squeeze out a lot of the family-run hotels that characterized Fo

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