HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS GUIDE 2023
IAN
continued from 4HH mobile home lots — where thousands of the most vulnerable residents may struggle to evacuate. Those numbers represent all places that could flood in Category 4 hurricanes, according to scientific models. No single storm would flood them all. Buildings here are generally older than those around Fort Myers, in part because of Tampa Bay’s centurylong streak of dodging major hurricanes. No disaster has forced our region to broadly rebuild to meet sturdier construction codes, like Miami after Hurricane Andrew or Punta Gorda after Charley. Together, the structures at risk of surge flooding from Category 4 storms here account for $129 billion in property value — $45 billion more than around Fort Myers. The Tampa Bay region is more vulnerable to storm surge than
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Sunday, May 28, 2023 |
just about anywhere else in the country. Even communities that seem safely situated inland never are too far from the namesake bay. “We have so much coastline,” said Daniel Noah, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. “That water’s going to hit everywhere.” In early 2022, the Times detailed the extreme threat with an analysis showing tens of thousands of properties could flood here from even Category 1 hurricanes. That risk is growing as climate change causes seas to rise. But there’s little evidence to suggest the people of Tampa Bay were better prepared to face Ian than their neighbors to the south. Each near-miss lulls some deeper into a false sense of security, instead of emphasizing the inevitable danger. Far fewer Tampa Bay residents evacuated to shelters than expected, leaving emergency managers worried that too many are
Tampa Bay Times
LUIS SANTANA | Times (2022)
Mobile homes are piled together after being swept off their lots by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers Beach.
betting their lives the region will continue to avoid disaster. Even for those who evacuate or survive, the stakes are high: A direct hit could wipe out many
financially. Relatively few homeowners carry flood insurance, in part because flawed government flood zones leave them feeling safer than they are. As many as 60% of properties here that could flood in Category 4 hurricanes are located in places where federal rules don’t require owners to carry flood insurance. The area around Fort Myers is the only place in Florida that comes close to matching Tampa Bay’s cocktail of natural risk and intense development. The parallels are obvious on the ground, where pastel souvenir shops sit next to beachside ice cream parlors. Piers hover above the placid, turquoise Gulf of Mexico. Condo towers cast shadows over cottages along streets that dead-end at the water’s edge. Ian left this vision of paradise in tatters in Fort Myers Beach. Squint at the rubble, and it’s easy to instead imagine Pass-a-Grille, Clearwater Beach, Madeira Beach or Treasure Island. One risk expert, Steve Bowen, chief science officer for the reinsurance firm Gallagher Re, surveyed the destruction in Southwest Florida and couldn’t help but think of Tampa Bay. Bowen grew up around Palm Harbor and spent two years working at a local TV station. He recalls a
sentiment that colored Tampa Bay’s collective response to hurricanes. “There’s a lot of feeling of invincibility,” Bowen said. Such confidence, however, is misplaced — just look 100 miles south.
Lives at risk
Fort Myers and Tampa share a common geographic weakness when it comes to hurricanes. The shallow continental shelf, which extends many miles into the gulf, allows storm surge to build before it crashes onto land. The water piles higher than it would along Florida’s Atlantic coast, where steeper drop-offs act as a barrier. On the islands in both Pinellas and Lee counties, every property is at risk of extreme flooding. But the 30-mile stretch between Cayo Costa, where Ian made landfall, and Fort Myers Beach, where it delivered its most violent surge, includes barrier islands with much less development than similar places in Tampa Bay. Some of Ian’s most punishing floodwaters pummeled marshes and mangroves but would have instead torn through neighborhoods here. Roughly two-thirds of Sanibel is conservation land, the city says — a percentage that is unfathomable in Tampa Bay. See IAN, 8HH