After Hurricane Ian, a low-lying Florida city starts to rebuild. Should it?
CAPE CORAL, Fla. — A home on the water's edge. That was the dream.
Two and a half years ago, Ignacio Soto could hardly believe his good fortune when he snagged a three-bedroom waterfront home in Cape Coral for $335,000 — a tropical haven where he could catch snapper from his dock and watch dolphins from his back patio.
But last week, after Hurricane Ian barreled into southwest Florida with a biblical surge of ocean surf, the 57-year-old registered nurse was confronting the downside of living just 7 feet above sea level.
Murky brown saltwater rushed up into the Cuban immigrant's palm-tree-dotted yard, past his wooden dock, filling his solar-heated swimming pool. It seeped into his home, soaking his laminated wood floors, kitchen cabinets and leather sofas, and reached the middle of the second story of his daughters' wooden dollhouse.
"This has never happened before!" Soto said as he stepped through his mud-streaked living room to his patio, adding that he plans to rebuild, no matter what he recoups from insurance policies. "Look," he said, pointing to the sparkling water beneath his tattered dock canopy, "you can't think that the water there is gonna
