The Impact of Climate Change on the Environment: An Analysis of Hurricane Ian, Flooding, and Waterfall in Southwest Florida, and How Carl Fisher Prepared to Survive in Hurricane Andrew
Stephen Strader is an Associate Professor of geography and the environment in the department of geography and the environment. He studies how human environments are vulnerable to natural disasters. The views expressed here are his own. There is more opinion on CNN.
Throughout southwest Florida, there are tens of thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Ian with stories like the Heltons. In some communities, homes spared in the storm are now flooding from rain-swollen rivers. 10,000 people are at shelters.
Emergency responders deal with an overwhelming volume of calls from those in need of help, as residents who did not evacuate face life-threatening conditions. This is very common in the state of Florida.
120 people were killed in Florida and five in North Carolina as a result of the storm. As of Tuesday night, Florida data provided to CNN reflected at least partial information for 72 of the state’s storm victims. Of those 72 deaths, drowning was listed as a “possible” or known “circumstance” in the deaths of 40 people.
In the wake of Andrew, the federal government enacted a plan to improve the construction quality of Florida’s homes giving the state some of the strongest building codes in the nation.
If we rewind back to the early 1910s, a man named Carl Fisher (best known as the automobile magnate responsible for building the Indianapolis Motor Speedway) decided to take a vacation on what is now known as Miami Beach.
He quickly realized the moneymaking opportunity at hand, buying, clearing and filling in thousands of acres of swamps and mangroves to make way for new waterfront property where investors would line up for the foreseeable future to build homes and hotels for those seeking a piece of paradise.
The simple fact is that when more people are exposed to a natural hazard such as a hurricane, the odds for a major disaster to occur are greater. As our population and built environment grows and expands, we are more readily placing ourselves in the harm’s way. Mangroves and the wetlands used to act as natural “buffers” from rising waters and waves caused by hurricanes. They have been replaced by subdivisions.
While many are focused on how climate change affects the chance of tropical storms and hurricanes, others are also looking at exposure and vulnerability changes.
As humans, we are not innocent or powerless in the fight against climate change and disasters. By deciding where and how we build, we play a very critical role. We ultimately decide what risks are worth taking. Right now, we are choosing to sit at the table and gamble, even though the deck is stacked against us. Perhaps we have Carl Fisher (and so many who came after him) to thank for that?
Home crumbling is a result of Nicole’s waves erode the coastline. A video shows the beach safety office collapsing.
The chunks of dock that floated onto the ground could weigh as much as a ton. “They were thrown around like they were nothing.”
He said that the damage is terrible, but that it’s important for the people to see what a storm can do. And when future storms are approaching. They take our advice very seriously.
Anderson told CNN that the city had no reported deaths and that authorities were confident that they had gotten everyone. Water and electricity are the biggest needs in the city.
Resident can expect power back bit by bit each day, he said, adding that 80% of the city is still without power, even though crews are already working on restoration.
I’m really hoping people stay home until we get the roads cleared and the power lines secured. It’s not safe in the area. There are trees that will fall. There’s more deaths after hurricanes because of people falling on power lines.
While Ian left Florida on Thursday afternoon as a tropical storm, South Carolina residents were bracing for lashing winds and heavy rain as it quickly became a hurricane again at sea; forecasters said it could strengthen again before doubling back onto land there by Friday.
Carnage and water on the home of a Florida fisherman living on a barrier island: A case study of Bill Ealahan Jr.
By damage, I’m talking here about the brick-and-mortar costs, to say nothing of the immeasurable cost of human suffering. That’s almost incomprehensible. For now, it’s also impossible to know. Much of the area is impassable.
A similar situation is playing out on nearby Pine Island, the largest barrier island on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Just days ago, it was a tranquil fishing and kayaking destination known for its small-town atmosphere. Now it is a scene of carnage, with cracked roadways and destroyed homes.
The mobile home that Bill Ealahan Jr. lived in used to stand out among the other beige homes in the trailer park.
But Hurricane Ian ripped the siding off his home and destroyed the carport and enclosed porch, exposing beige interior walls that matched everyone else’s in the community known as Holiday Park.
Mr. Ealahan, 69, who works in the kitchen of a seafood restaurant, watched nervously from his couch on Wednesday evening as the wind pulled dozens of neighbors’ homes apart, whipping pieces of their roofs against cars and trees before switching directions and taking out part of his house, too.
And there was the rain. “It came in like a river,” he said of the water that poured onto his dining room table from the ceiling. It kept coming.
Francie Pucin, the Last One After a Hurricane, and the Army Corps of Engineers: Fort Myers Island, Lee County, Florida
FORT MYERS, Fla. — A year ago, Francie Pucin moved from Illinois to Florida, eager to enjoy the better weather that the Sunshine State ostensibly has to offer.
She was the last one to leave, as were almost all her neighbors. Everyone made it through the storm alive in this close-knit community, she says.
She thinks she is luckier than her neighbors. At least she has a place to go — her snowbird parents, who live in Pompano Beach on the other side of Florida.
The Army Corps of Engineers has been called to help with the water system, and power has been restored for a little more than half of the customers who lost it after the storm, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Rescue missions, restoration of water and power in Lee County, and help with Search and Rescue are all priorities for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We are beginning our planning processes in order to plan for what the recovery will look like,” he says. We know that there will be a long and complex recovery, even while we are saving lives and stabilizing this incident. The measures are being put in place now to make sure we have the right people on the ground to do that.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/02/1126410632/florida-hurricane-ian-fort-myers-sanibel-island-lee-county-recovery
An island town devastated by the 2011 Florida hurricane, which led to traffic jams, detours, and power outage after Judge’s hurricane
The bad weather hasn’t stopped the rain from draining through the river system, which has resulted in historic rises on many rivers.
Evidence of that comes in a sudden rise on the Myakka River, which caused detours and traffic jams for several hours late Friday and Saturday on a section of I-75, a major artery in southern Florida. By Saturday, the highway was open again.
The Florida State University Center for Disaster Risk Policy is headed by David Merrick. He has teams flying drones over the worst-hit areas, taking video of the damage.
He says that people who are without power or water and have no access to their homes may think they are fine the day before.
FORT MYERS, FLA. — No place in Florida seemed to have suffered more damage from Hurricane Ian than the town of Fort Myers Beach, located on Estero Island along the state’s southwest coast.
Chelle Walton and her husband, Rob, have lived on Sanibel since 1981. They’ve seen a lot of hurricanes, but by the time Ian shifted toward them last week, it was too late to leave. Lee County did not order an evacuate early enough.
As the sea rushed in and began filling up their house, she and her husband made a last phone call to their son, Aaron, with the water up to their chests.
James Judge, the rescue crew’s boat captain, looked up at the dying sunlight. The island would soon become pitch black, and they had to hurry. They had to cross the bay to get to the mainland. They would risk crashing into an overturned vessel or other unseen storm debris in the dark water.
One official who flew over the community estimates that 80% of the structures will have to be rebuilt. Ian battered the barrier island with a 12-foot storm surge and winds near 150 miles per hour. The bridge was damaged in the storm and is now closed. The residents who were allowed to return to their homes after being evacuated are shocked by how little remains.
Helton has been in Florida for more than 40 years. He built a successful business on Captiva, another nearby island devastated by the storm. He’s 84, long since retired and now is not sure what to do next. Like the house, all the couple’s plans were scrambled and destroyed by the hurricane.
That, Jim Helton says, and the boat he found in the middle of his house. It demolished his sunroom and opened the house to the elements. He doesn’t know whose boat it is, or what will be required to remove the rest of the rubble that used to be his home. “It will probably be there for a long time because many places have been hit,” he says.
He tried to stay positive, but when he saw the boat inside his house and the damage done by the surge, his heart sank. “It was hard to get in there because the couches and everything floated up, all mixed together.”
His wife Susan also says that the washing machine is something. “All my books”, Susan says, “everything in the house was picked up by the surge.”
Jim and his wife were going to sell the house this winter. The coffee machine at the store wrote a note saying, “Call the sales lady.” And that hurt. He doesn’t know if he can recover from it. “I’m hanging in,” he says. I’m battling depression. I could cry right now. I’m not.
Timing of the Fourth Costliest Hurricane in U.S. History: Mike and Susan Helton at Fort Myers Beach, Florida, Ia
A catastrophe modeling company estimates that insured losses will be over $60 billion and total damages may exceed $100 billion. Ian will be the fourth costliest Hurricane in U.S. history.
Jim thinks it will be ten years before the island community is rebuilt. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to see it. In the meantime, he and his wife are thinking about Texas. “My son lives in Florida, he doesn’t like it,” he says. Susan doesn’t do much now.
Susan Helton has experienced trauma before. She was in New York on 9/11. “I thought you should not push it because you gave me one disaster.” But guess what, a higher power came in and said, ‘Go ahead, press that button one more time and see if she can take it.’ “
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/02/1126469206/fort-myers-beach-florida-hurricane-ian
The Flood and Afterglow in the Homes of the Jakse Family: An Empirical View of how a Florida Beach Home was Built in the Early 2000s
Jim is also thinking about God, whether he’s still up to it, the challenge he’s been given, and so on. He threw me this curve and I have had a good life. I’m alive,” Jim says, and then laughs. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. I’m about out of gas.
Through the side angles of their Ring camera, the couple saw their neighbors’ homes flood and the aftermath as the sun came out Friday morning. They saw fallen trees, people kayaking down their block and someone driving an SUV through more than three feet of floodwaters. They even saw an otter swimming through the storm surge in their front yard.
Ring said that in the 24 hours around when the hurricane hit, Floridians posted millions of times — almost 10 times the normal volume — in the company’s app, where customers share videos and information. Most were safety-related posts, like sharing utility outages.
Mr. and Ms. Jakse consider their home to be very lucky. The home was built several feet higher than their neighbors homes. The house next to the one currently occupied will need to be gutted. And although much of the area still has no power, the couple’s home runs on solar panels and a battery system that is separate from the energy grid.
“We’re kind of the electric plug now for the neighborhood,” Ms. Jakse said. Several of our neighbors will come to use our washer and dryer tomorrow because we have hot water. They’re plugging in their phones.”
When hurricane Ian destroyed Fort Myers Beach, Florida, a rescue officer cheers on the door of the Mariner’s Boathouse & Beach Resort
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Florida Task Force 2 embarked upon a daunting task of knocking on every door that was left standing after Hurricane Ian destroyed Fort Myers Beach. It was the only way to make sure they had not missed anyone still waiting to be rescued — or someone who had perished.
It’s the fire department! Noel Armas, a rescue squad officer, yelled as he banged on doors at the Mariner’s Boathouse & Beach Resort, on the mangled island’s southern end, which had not been hit as hard as other parts. Anybody need assistance?
He put his ear to the window because he was afraid an older person or a person who was injured could get trapped inside and need help. Down the hall, Vincent Pangallo, a rescue specialist, clanged on the elevator doors with a huge metal hammer, to make sure no one was stuck.
Fort Myers Beach City Councilman Bill Veach said his 90-year-old cottage is in ruins, with only one section that was a recent addition left standing. He said that pieces of his home had been found two blocks away.
“You see a friend that you weren’t sure was alive or dead and that brings you joy. Veach said a joy is more than a loss of property.
More than 1,900 Rescuers have been rescued since the Hurricanes of Elizabeth McGuire’s Newborn daughter, Elizabeth, in the Tampa Bay Area
Rescuers have been coming to help trapped residents by boat and aircraft. More than 1,900 people have been rescued as of Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a news conference.
Elizabeth McGuire’s family said they last spoke with her Wednesday and had been having trouble reaching her. They learned of her death from the Cape Coral Police Department.
Susan said that hurricanes will not cost her as much as one hundred blizzards. My daughter is dead, my business is out, and my husband is not with me.
On Sanibel Island, they’ve been cut off from the Florida peninsula, and every house shows a damage, the fire chief said.
“There are a lot places that are not livable. The places off their foundation are very dangerous. There are snakes all over the place, and there are alligator running around.
Pine Island, Fla., a Hurricane Irreversibly Saved from Devastating Fireballs on June 30, 2005: An Emergency Physician’s Perspective
“Food is being delivered to Pine Island. Now, is it enough to sustain them over a long period of time? Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais said that they can’t say that yet.
Ben Abo, who is an emergency physician, said they ran out of supplies because residents were in denial that the storm would hit.
“I’m seeing a lot of despair, but I’m also seeing hope,” Abo said. “I’m seeing urban search and rescue, fire rescue, bringing hopes to people that we’re going to get through this. But we have to do it in stages.”
“This is not necessarily going to be a bridge you’re going to want to go 45 miles per an hour over maybe, but at least you’ll have connectivity to the mainland,” the governor said.
He painted a somber picture of the area, describing thousands of destroyed boats and vessels that have ended up in yards, in mangroves, and sunk in shallow waters and environmental hazards from leaking diesel and fuel.
Johnny Lauder, a former police officer, told CNN he sprang into action after his mother, who uses a wheelchair, called in a panic and said water was rushing into her home and reaching her chest.
“The water was up to the windows, and I heard her screaming inside,” Lauder said. It was a scare and a sigh of relief at the same time that she wasn’t hurt, since she still had air in her lungs.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/04/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-tuesday/index.html
When the Hurricane Ian struck, many people have left. But what about individuals? A story of a frustrated veteran and her mother in Winter Springs, Florida
It’s not clear how many people remain missing after the storm. Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said authorities are working to consolidate a list of the missing.
Tonia Werner is among those waiting to hear news about a loved one. It’s been three days since she heard anything about her father, David Park, who was admitted to ShorePoint ICU in Port Charlotte days before Hurricane Ian made landfall.
There was only one last contact on Friday, and that was on a ventriloquism. “No phones, nothing. I don’t even know if he’s alive. We’re stuck, and I have reached out to various places, begging for information. There is no way to get to him.
She lives close to Port Charlotte but can’t get to the area due to the flooding of the area of the town of Arcadia.
Mary Mayhew, the president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, said that hospitals in Florida have been experiencing significant pressure on capacity since Ian hit.
Emergency departments have sustained damage, staffing has been impacted as many hospital workers have been displaced or lost their vehicles in the hurricane, and facilities lost reliable access to water.
Hospitals do not usually discharge patients if their homes are damaged in the storm or their nursing homes are temporarily closed.
Local officials and housing advocates worry about what the damaged housing stock will mean for people with low wages or fixed incomes. In interviews, some people said staying in water-ravaged homes is their only option.
Edward Murray is the housing expert and associate director of the Metropolitan Center at Florida International University. Do you think about poor communities? But what about individuals?
In Winter Springs, a city of strip malls and subdivisions in Seminole County, northeast of Orlando, Robert McLain, 67, a military veteran and retired construction worker, sat in the garage of his waterlogged rental home. He was unable to return to his house because of the foot-high water marks. Mr. McLain, who doesn’t have any other options, decided to live in his car for a bit. “I’m not running to go live in the Hilton, you know what I’m saying?” he said. “I’m totally screwed.”
Three hours’ drive southwest in Arcadia, an inland agricultural community in one of the state’s poorer counties, was not enough time for Joann Hampton to cry on a pool deck. The nearby Peace River had drenched much of her neighborhood. The house and backyard were submerged by the water after the storm.
She said that she had property insurance but not flood insurance. After moving from Fort Myers, Ms. Hampton bought her one-story ranch-style home for $44,000 in 1998. Her only income is a disability check and for now, she will live with a relative nearby. “We lost everything.”
First Day of Hurricane Ionization Recovery in Florida, Ian Biden and the First-Principles-Breaking Governor of Florida, Emig and Paskaly
Residents of Florida’s Sanibel Island – which remains cutoff from the mainland – were allowed back for the first time Wednesday, with a warning that they could be shocked when they returned to their hard-hit community. Emig and Paskaly, who have lived on Sanibel for the last two years, said they did not expect it to be unrecognizable.
While walking on the shoreline of Sanibel Island, you had to travel along a windy and sandy road to get to Emig and Paskaly. The couple saw a sign that was mangled in the mud in a pile of twisted gutter, blankets and branches. They passed a large banyan tree that had many of its branches twisted and snapped, with one large branch lying in front of a neighbor’s garage.
Sanibel’s reopening to residents came the same day President Joe Biden visited Florida to see Ian’s destruction first-hand. The President and the governor of Florida were briefed on the storm response and efforts to recover.
“Today we have one job and only one job,” Biden said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “That’s to make sure the people of Florida get everything that they need to fully, thoroughly recover.”
We are concerned about rebuilding. This could happen again, and it will happen again,” Johnson said. We will be prepared. We will rebuild, and we will rebuild stronger and better than we were before.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-wednesday/index.html
First Mother’s Day of Florida-Recovery: Julie and Vicki Paskaly, 25, of Sanibel Island, after the Hurricane Irenees
Sanibel Island’s city manager Dana Souza said search and Rescue teams would begin searches for damaged and destroyed homes Thursday. Teams will not enter homes unless they have reason to believe that someone needs assistance.
Many of the 270,000 customers without power Wednesday are in Lee and Charlotte counties. Many schools also remain shuttered, some hospitals are still struggling to provide care and boil-water notices remain in place in some areas.
It was the first time the pool was covered with metal and wood debris after Hurricane Ian hit Sanibel Island.
The chaotic scene changed Paskaly into a mentally deranged person. She had only expected parts of their screen enclosure to have fallen, she said, covering her mouth – “How do you ever start with this?”
Julie Emig and Vicki Paskaly look at their displaced mailbox amid the destruction outside of their home one week after Hurricane Ian pummeled Sanibel Island.
In their garage, the couple found an item on top of a shelf filled with water, leading them to believe the surge reached at least 5 feet. The floor was slippery from being covered in sludge. Their Mini Cooper – filled with mold and water – was ruined.
“I knew I was going to lose it, but you just look at all of this and it’s like 5 or 6 feet of water in here and it’s like where do we start?” Emig cried as she said it.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-wednesday/index.html
Hurricane Ian and Florida Recovery Wednesday: The Los Angeles Times-Newton Reports on the Sanibel Islands
Ian made others feel bad. Anddy Garcia, owner of property management company Sanibel Home Concierge, had to tell several clients what they had been dreading to hear: Their homes were beyond saving.
When you call them and say their home was destroyed, it’s horrible, they’re gasping for air. “It’s totally heart-wrenching for me.”
The couple rode out the storm at a friend’s house. They were securing homes for neighbors who weren’t on the island, and by the time they finished, they no longer felt like they had time to leave, the couple told CNN.
“You can go over it in a helicopter and you see damage, but it does not do it justice until you are actually on the ground, and you see concrete utility poles sawed off right in half, massive power lines everywhere, massive amounts of debris,” he said.
Karen Ryan of the Lee County Electric Cooperative said that it could take a month or more for power to be restored to Sanibel and Pine islands. Once we get access to the island, it will be easier to restore power.
An estimated 6,400 people lived in the City of Sanibel as of April 2021, according to the US Census Bureau. The island is also home to a number of hotels and resorts and sees a significant amount of tourists each year.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-wednesday/index.html
Pine Island Residents and Charlotte Public Schools are Closed During the Hurricane Michaeli Recovery after a Bridge Weakly Leashed at Salty Sam’s Marina
Pine Island’s residents should be able to access their community via car later Wednesday, when crews fix a bridge that was washed away in the storm.
At Salty Sam’s Marina in Fort Myers, owner Darrell Hanson and many of his employees – about 120 at this time of year and up to 200 at the height of tourist season – are working to salvage what they can, some of them dealing with the loss of their livelihoods and personal property.
Employee Ty Landers, who works on a pirate cruise at the marina, rode out the storm at his family’s home in Fort Myers. Fortunately the home and his family are safe, he said.
The crew of the pirate ships lost everything and many of their employees lost their houses, said Landers. “Hopefully when the time’s right they’ll come back. But right now their lives fell apart, and they’re putting it back together.”
Residents of Lee and Charlotte counties – the two counties with the highest death tolls from the hurricane – will be able to get temporary blue coverings with fiber-reinforced sheeting at no cost for their roofs to help reduce further damage, according to a Charlotte County news release.
In Charlotte County, which is north of Fort Myers, public schools will be closed until further notice after several of its 22 schools were damaged by Ian. The storm lasted over 12 hours, hammering away. Mike Riley said that Charlotte County’s public schools are not safe right now.
Public schools in Collier County are set to open Thursday, according to district spokesperson Chad Oliver, who added he did not know how many kids will show up for classes. More than than 22% of the district’s teachers live in hard-hit Lee County, but Oliver says the district is confident it is ready to reopen with the help of more than 800 substitute teachers.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/05/us/hurricane-ian-florida-recovery-wednesday/index.html
The holiest day of the year in Florida: Pamela Swartz, the president of Lee Health, and Gov. Ron DeSantis
“We were ready, we had our generators all ready. We had plenty of fuel. The loss of water from our utility companies was unforeseen, said the president and CEO of Lee Health.
Homes the storm tore from their foundations blocked the streets leading to her house, which she found ablaze when she arrived, she told CNN in an interview Wednesday.
After combing through the ashes she found one item that had not been damaged: a candlestick holder her great-grandmother carried when she moved to the US.
She said wednesday that it was the simplest of her prized possessions, and gave her a sense of hope on the holiest day of the year. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year in Judaism.
FORT MMY’S BEACH, FLORIDA Pamela Swartz is a conservative who has been wary of government spending for a long time. She said that the federal aid could not keep up with the damage caused by Hurricane Ian.
Hurricane Ian inflicted its worst damage and heaviest casualties across several deeply Republican counties, where Trump flags decorate yards and trucks and many voters express hostility toward President Biden and the federal government in general.
On Wednesday, as Mr. Biden toured damaged areas of the coast and met and shook hands with Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 challenger who is usually one of his most strident critics, the two leaders shared bipartisan vows to build and recover. Both men have said they would put aside their differences in light of the disaster that has left over 100 people dead in Florida. That is thought to be the most deaths from a single storm in the state since 1935.
How quickly did the evacuation zone in Lee County Florida become mandatory after the Hurricane Ian turned into a tropical tropical cyclotide in December 2006?
Editor’s Note: Cara Cuite is a health psychologist and assistant extension specialist in the department of human ecology at Rutgers University. Rebecca Morss is a senior scientist and deputy director of the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The views expressed are of their own. Read more opinion on CNN.
As the storm approached, forecasts were changed as Ian’s probable track changed. The storm was in the south and areas like Lee County, which were supposed to have a lower chance of direct impact, were directly in Ian’s path.
Ian also underwent rapid intensification, perhaps influenced by climate change, which meant that its wind speeds increased dramatically as it passed over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before landfall.
Emergency managers typically need at least 48 hours to successfully evacuate areas of southwest Florida. Voluntary evacuate orders for Lee County were given just 48 hours prior to the storm’s landfall, and many areas were made mandatory just hours before the storm hit. The amount of time outlined in the emergency management plan for Lee County was less.
In areas where evacuation orders were issued later, people who weren’t expecting to evacuate needed to find and understand this evacuation zone information quickly. In addition, it takes time to communicate evacuation orders throughout a community, and for people to decide what to do, pack belongings, find a place to go and arrange how to get there, often in the midst of heavy traffic and other complications and obstacles.
The people need to know their area before they follow an order. Research from other areas of the country indicates that many people don’t. The websites for the evacuation zone locator in the affected counties were very important. A lot of people were checking their zones and some websites crashed in the days leading up to the storm.
It is too early to draw conclusions about what happened in the lead up to Hurricane Ian, but there are at least a few things clear. People should know when a storm is on its way that they need to leave, because it may not be enough to find out where to go. Emergency managers need to educate people in advance of upcoming storms and develop more robust websites to handle queries in the days before the storm.
Public officials and the media need to provide concrete information about where to go and how to evacuate in order for people’s decisions to be made.
More than thirty thousand people who used the public shelter system would likely find it helpful if there were clear indications of whether a shelter was pet friendly or accommodating of individuals with special needs. Pets and disability are cited as reasons as to why more support is needed in these areas.
A distressing storm unfolding in Florida and a man’s house in the wake of a mobile home park in Sarasota
A 57-year-old woman in the Sarasota area developed hypothermia and died after her roof caved in and she became stuck in floodwaters. A 96-year-old man drowned after getting trapped under a parked car in Charlotte County. In Fort Myers Beach, the body of an 85-year-old woman was found in a tree several days after the storm.
The circumstances of many deaths remained unclear, but information released this week by state and local governments provided a distressing portrait of a storm that overwhelmed both residents and emergency responders.
Charlie has spent most days since the storm trying to get family photos to let him know he was alive. This one depicts him and his wife, Debbie, when they were younger.
“The big trash trucks with the claws, they just come in, they pick that stuff up like it’s nothing. “There was seventeen years of hard work that was done in just five minutes”, says Ramirez, who lives near the beach. A group of people, including his parents and partner, went into the attic of their home to survive. Almost everything in the house was ruined. He says that like others, stuff is stuff, and he is thankful his family is alive.
A city in Florida. A man in his late 70s, eyes red-rimmed and holding a beer in a koozie, surveys the ruination that was once his happy home. His decapitated mobile home is in a mobile home park. The name comes from the famed barrier island just offshore.
There are older mobile homes in Florida. Of 822,000 mobile and manufactured homes in the state almost two-thirds of them are pre-1994 vintage, according to the Florida Manufactured Housing Association.
The Borren Trailer: “Where are the “Florida Destroyed” Older Mobile Homes? “I know there’s nothing like it,” says John Borren
“That wind was so strong. I never seen anything so strong,” says Borren, a retired construction worker from Massachusetts. They claim it was stronger than Charley. I believe it now.”
Charley was a Category 4 with 150 mph winds, which was the new record on this stretch of coastline. Gasparilla was spared by Charley. Life went on.
Borren took his wife and motored out to the island, where he collected shells and shark’s teeth. They owned their 1972 trailer free and clear. The rent on their lot was only $580 a month. They were able to live on their little piece of paradise because of their social security check.
The trailer has been here for 40 years. It’s a ’72 trailer. They won’t pay me because I put thousands of dollars in it. Very few people had insurance. Everything was lost by them.
“They’re living in these mobile home parks because there is not an affordable housing stock available to them,” says Jamie Ross, CEO of the Florida Housing Coalition, an advocacy group.
But tell that to retirees on fixed incomes like John Borren, low-wage earners and farmworkers who cannot afford to live anyplace else in a booming real estate market like Florida’s. The state has nice summers with mild summers, year-round sunshine, and sugar-sand beaches.
“The pressure on affordable housing in Florida is just excruciating,” says Gladys Cook, director of Resilience and Disaster Recovery at the Florida Housing Coalition. “We’ve had land costs and construction costs go up 30 percent in just the last couple of years.”
“Yeah, they’re ugly and square, they don’t belong here, they looked a lot better as beer cans,” croons the singer/songwriter who fell in love with Key West.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/09/1127714293/hurricane-ian-older-mobile-homes-florida-destroyed
The Legacy of Punta Gorda, Florida: Governor DeSantis Sets the Standards for a Resilient Community of Residuals
Just ask the residents of Parkhill Estates in Punta Gorda. The community is full of people who like to play games, such as poker, and cruise the street in golf carts.
“Hi Denny, how are ya?” says Bob Murphy, 82, to another T-shirted retiree in a baseball cap. Murphy is the president of the residents’ co-op. He’s driving around catching up with his neighbors.
“It demolished all the older homes,” says Ernie Parent, a 74-year-old gas company retiree from Zanesville, Ohio, who had moved in only months before the storm hit. We had over a hundred new homes built after Charley. Ian was bad, but the hundred new homes all stood up.”
Murphy is a man who spends winters in Punta Gorda and summers in Cincinnati and he believes that the structures themselves seem to be pretty durable. The majority of the structures are still standing. There’s some siding off and some roof damage. There were a number of them. But for most part they held up pretty well.”
Murphy says he’s too old to go through another big storm. He hopes his mobile home holds, but if it doesn’t, “I won’t come back.”
Additionally, hurricane storm surge is creeping higher, and homes and other critical infrastructure are now exposed to saltwater and erosion that they weren’t a few decades ago.
The governor went in a different direction. Rather than encouraging homes and businesses to switch to renewable energy or requiring them to retreat from the growing risks of climate-fueled destruction, he has taken steps to protect the oil and gas industry. He signed a bill last year that stopped local governments from trying to force the utilities to switch to cleaner energy sources. When making investment decisions, he barred the state’s nearly $180 billion pension fund from taking environmental, social and governance metrics into account.
If Governor DeSantis ever gets serious about a changing climate, the place to start is with the emissions that are also driving Florida’s other dangerous impacts: the intensifying heat waves that put outdoor workers at risk of dehydration and death, the warmer ocean waters causing rapid intensification of storms like Ian and the toxic algae blooms, which are also exacerbated by pollution.
Homes and buildings are collapsing into the ocean and authorities have issued warnings to evacuate some areas as Tropical Storm Nicole pushes a huge volume of ocean water onshore in southeast Florida.
In Volusia County, at least 49 beachfront properties, including hotels and condos, have been deemed “unsafe” in the aftermath of Nicole, which hit Florida’s eastern coast south of Vero Beach as a Category 1 hurricane early Thursday before weakening into a tropical storm and eventually becoming a post-tropical cyclone Friday afternoon.
“Right now, ground zero is here,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood told CNN affiliate WESH-TV on Wednesday as Nicole came ashore as a category 1 hurricane.
It is significant because it was the storm surge that peaked at 6 feet Thursday that was significant, because it was the huge storm as it approached Florida and extended for more than 500 miles.
The sea level in this area has risen more than a foot in the past 100 years, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, and most of that rise occurred in the past three decades.
The stress on the seawalls that are meant to protect coastal communities from high waves and water levels has been intensified by this storm surge. One seawall that was put up on Tuesday, which Valigorsky and his neighbors had hoped would protect their properties from damage, crumbled into the ocean by Wednesday, he said.
He said a strong storm wouldn’t really affect it because you just need high tide or storm-agitated tides to wash away or put stress on the walls. “Having these two storms six weeks apart, if you don’t give places any time to repair or replenish, each storm definitely leaves its mark.”
Many coastal communities in the US get nuisance flooding on a regular basis. Higher sea levels, caused by warmer water temperatures and melting glaciers and ice sheets, increase the hazards coastal residents are exposed to.
The beachfront community of Trip Valigorsky, Jr., left to pursue his dream in the aftermath of Hurricane Nicole and he left his home
As the storm surge and strong winds caused by Hurricane Nicole swept across Florida, the beachfront home of Trip Valigorsky was washed away, which had been in his family for nearly 15 years.
Valigorsky decided to leave the area as he watched the storm grow more severe, and he took his dog with him. By the time he returned, all that remained of his home was the garage and the front foyer.
Valigorsky said he plans to rebuild his home with the neighbors who also lost theirs in the aftermath of Nicole.
Martin said he has lived in the area for two years and the home was his permanent residence where he spent time with his children and grandchildren, playing soccer in the backyard or walking down to the beach.
“There’s no politics at the beach, everyone gets along,” Martin said, adding that his community and those surrounding Wilbur-By-The-Sea are keeping his spirits high.
Arlisa Payne, who has been a resident of the beachfront community for most of her life, told CNN affiliate Spectrum News 13 that she’s “never seen anything like this” after assessing the damage caused by Hurricane Nicole.
The mother of four children said many of her neighbor’s homes were not damaged by Hurricane Ian but they were hit hard by Nicole, making it difficult for the community to prepare for such storms.