A foot of air left
What happens when the weather tries to kill you.
Suzie Mack, a Fort Myers resident, told the BBC that her brother’s mobile home park saw water as high as 8ft during the storm.
Remember that stationary camera in Fort Myers? It was at 10ft and the waves kept submerging it.
“They got on their air mattresses inside their house, because it was too late to leave, and by the time the surge got to its peak, they had about a foot of air left in their homes,” she said. “Nobody died there, but it was a horrific story to hear.”
That’s what happened in Katrina. The water rose and rose and rose and people had to break through their roofs. Those who weren’t able to drowned.
While for the moment the scale of Ian’s destruction remains unclear, independent experts have warned that the economic impact is likely to be well into the tens of billions of dollars.
How many times can such expensive impacts be absorbed? I have no idea what the answer is but I’m pretty sure it’s not infinite.
In these conditions, many Florida residents have been left wondering what their future looks like – and whether to stay in the state or to leave.
Leave. Florida is at the front of the line on this.
Sadly, the economics of the situation means that the only people who will leave are those with the assets that would allow them to start somewhere new even if they took a bath on their Florida property, or those who literally have no other choice because they’ve lost everything. Anyone in between those two extremes is pretty much stuck, unless they decide that being homeless in Peoria is better.
Well people who rent as opposed to owning can afford to leave at least in the sense of not having to kiss all that capital goodbye.