Back-to-back hundred-year storm events brought record storm surge, rainfall and winds to the Tampa Bay region. The question some are asking now isn’t where people should rebuild, but where we should let nature regain control.
New estimates for Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend, show that the storm’s damage could be as high as $250 million. The bulk of that destruction was nowhere near where the category four hurricane came ashore, but in the mountains of North Carolina where entire towns were wiped off the face of the earth.
See our previous coverage here on the science of calculating storm surges .
Barrier Islands are the first line of defense during a hurricane and the last place you would ever want to be. In 2018, during Hurricane Ian, storm surge plus wave action on top funneled unfathomable amounts of water through Ft. Myers Beach had a 15-foot surge with 6 feet of wave action for a combined 21 feet! Not even the second floor was safe.
“We’re seeing more storms in Florida that sort of sweep up the coast, both on the West Coast and the East Coast, and generate significant storm surge along a very significant length of shoreline,” Dr. Rob Young, Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University , said.