All day Wednesday I watched with deep concern as Hurricane Ian smashed into Florida’s west coast. The massive storm made landfall at Cayo Costa, a barrier island just north of Sanibel, which in the island I wrote about in my recent posts, “The Island” and “The Fish House.”
From visiting those places many times over a half-century, I know a bit about hurricanes and why a storm like Ian could prove to be so dangerous and destructive there.
As of this printing, I do not know the extent of the damage to the properties I stayed at over the decades or the friends I still have in the region. But there is a report with a photo that the causeway bridge connecting the island to the mainland has been ripped apart:
Section of Sanibel Causeway wiped out by Hurricane Ian (TBT)
Time-Lapse Footage Shows Storm Surge in Sanibel, Fla. (WSJ)
Because most people focus on the high winds in hurricanes (Ian’s gusts reached 150 mph), they often don’t realize that a relatively small amount of the damages or deaths are caused by the wind. It’s the surge of water that in this case came in from a riled-up Gulf of Mexico that presents the real threat to life and limb.
Much of coastal Florida, including Sanibel, is barely above sea level. When the sea surges even a couple feet it will flood many of the buildings standing in these parts, which is why most of them are built on pilings.
But the storm surge from Ian was much higher in some places, including in the nearest city, Ft. Myers.. The result was catastrophic. Many homes were flooded and suffered serious water damage. Some were swept away. The inhabitants who didn’t evacuate were in danger of drowning in the flood.
Many residents I knew when I lived there expressed a mixture of fatalism and machismo that led them to ignore evacuation orders from hurricanes and shelter in place. They thought being in such a big storm was exciting. Young men on the island used to brag they would just tie themselves to a palm tree and ride a hurricane out. Some claimed to have done so in the past, though I kinda doubted that they did.
Again, the high wind isn’t what matters so much as the force of the flood that follows. And Ian was a super-storm, the result of climate change. It was much bigger than any storm that has hit there in the past.
One factor that makes these types of storms deceptively dangerous is they tend to slow down as they approach landfall. Ian slowed to a virtual crawl, which made some residents feel like the situation really wasn’t so bad after all. Also, there is the eye. Even the birds come back out for a while during the eye, leading people to think things are okay.
But during this period, the legendary calm before the storm, you’d best be boarding up windows, stocking up on drinking water, food and medicines, and moving to the highest ground you can reach in the area.
OTHER LINKS:
How Hurricane Ian intensified so quickly (The Hill)
‘The Real Deal’: Florida’s Low-Lying Gulf Coast Braces for Hurricane Ian (NYT)
Hurricane Ian killed at least 2 people in Cuba and wiped out power to the entire island (CNN)
Florida's population has skyrocketed. That could make Hurricane Ian more destructive (NPR)
Hurricane Ian Is a Storm That We Knew Would Occur (New Yorker)
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