Florida has invested in resilience. Hurricane Ian is a sobering test.
As Atlantic storms continue to increase in power and impact, Americans have not yet blinked about setting down roots in their path.
Hurricane Ian lumbered onto land at 3:05 p.m. Wednesday near Cape Coral and Fort Myers, an area of Florida that has seen a stunning 623% population increase since 1970. Two-thirds of those people live in a flood zone, like the winding canal-oriented neighborhoods at the core of Cape Coral’s unique appeal.
As those neighborhoods took a battering Wednesday, Hurricane Ian underscores the challenges that define coastal living and communal responses to storms that are only growing more powerful and expensive.
As it moves into the Atlantic on a northward path into another possible landfall in South Carolina, the hurricane is testing, head-on, efforts in Florida and beyond to shore up preparedness, including emergency operations, electric grid improvements, humanitarian relief, and building codes.
The extent to which those preparations are offset
