Excerpt:
Despite what climate science tells us, these communities will be rebuilt….
Hurricane Ian should make Florida’s politicians and Florida’s insurance companies rethink building on the coasts, the barrier islands, and the wetlands. It’s unaffordable. It’s unsustainable. It’s environmental suicide.
But in Florida, real estate is a religion, and short term profit is a sacrament.
Southwest Florida still hasn’t recovered from Hurricane Irma in 2017. In Bonita Springs, the feds gave the city $5 million to buy out people living in the most vulnerable areas and help them find housing on higher ground. To date, the public works department has only bought three properties. The houses that Irma inundated five years ago have flooded again.
It’s nearly impossible to reconcile the Tommy Bahama lifestyle people demand with the reality of coastal ecology.
We’re in denial.
