According to the county's emergency management plan from 2018, even a 10% chance of a six-foot storm surge is enough to prompt the evacuation of Zone A. That includes the barrier islands, the shoreline and inland areas along the Caloosahatchee River.

But officials didn't order a mandatory evacuation at that time, even as neighboring Charlotte County required residents to go on Monday.

Instead, Lee County authorities waited until Tuesday to institute mandatory evacuations for people expected to be in the areas most impacted by the storm. (snip)

"Seventy-two hours before the storm, we still were not in the cone," Pendergrass said. "We were working off of data and went off that data."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also defended the decision by Lee County officials to order an evacuation when they did.

"But you know — 72 hours, they weren't even in the cone, 48 hours they were on the periphery. So you gotta make the decisions as best you can," he said on Sunday.