Environment – Page 78 – The Tarbabys Blog

Climate change is causing more billion-dollar weather disasters

Yahoo! News

Climate change is causing more billion-dollar weather disasters

David Knowles, Senior Editor – October 12, 2022

When Hurricane Ian barreled into Florida’s Gulf Coast last month, it became the 15th extreme weather event in the U.S. this year to rack up damages totaling more than $1 billion. Climate change, data shows, is helping to make expensive disasters much more frequent in recent years.

In fact, 2022 marks the eighth straight year that at least 10 separate $1 billion weather-related disasters occurred, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“In the last five years [2017-2021], there were just 18 days on average between billion-dollar disasters—compared to 82 days in the 1980s,” Climate Central, a consortium of scientists and journalists, found in a new analysis posted to its website.

This year’s extreme weather disasters in the U.S. have resulted in over 340 deaths, the NOAA said, and the financial toll is still being tallied. The insurance losses alone from Hurricane Ian are projected to cost between $53 billion and $74 billion, according to an estimate by RMS, a risk modeling company. In addition to that staggering sum, the National Flood Insurance Program could face an extra $10 billion in losses, Insurance Business America reported.

“The number and cost of weather and climate disasters are increasing in the United States due to a combination of increased exposure (i.e., more assets at risk), vulnerability (i.e., how much damage a hazard of given intensity — wind speed or flood depth, for example — causes at a location), and climate change is also supercharging the increasing frequency and intensity of certain types of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters — most notably the rise in vulnerability to drought, lengthening wildfire seasons in the western states, and the potential for extremely heavy rainfall becoming more common in the eastern states,” Adam Smith, a climatologist at the National Centers for Environmental Information and a lead analyst on the NOAA’s findings on $1 billion disasters, told Yahoo news in an email. “Sea level rise is worsening hurricane storm surge flooding.”

Among the other $1 billion or greater weather-related disasters to hit the U.S. this year are the extreme flooding that occurred in Kentucky and Missouri from July 26 to 28, the prolonged drought and heat waves that gripped the western U.S. between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, devastating wildfires that consumed thousands of acres in New Mexico this spring, a derecho that plowed through Indiana on July 13, and the extreme precipitation event in Summerville, Ga., on Sept. 4 that dumped more than 12 inches of rain.

While climate change is not the sole cause of events like hurricanes, drought, rainfall or wildfires, ample scientific research has shown that rising global temperatures are amplifying all of them, making each potentially more destructive.

Workers clearing debris in Fort Myers, Fla., in the wake of Hurricane Ian, Oct. 1. (Giorgio Viera/AFP)

“The year-to-date average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 56.8 degrees F — 1.7 degrees above average — ranking in the warmest third of the YTD record. California and Florida saw their third- and fourth-warmest January-through-September periods on record, respectively,” the NOAA stated on its website.

Across the West, nearly 1,000 heat records were broken in early September, the NOAA said, a month that will go down as the fifth-warmest on record. In all, the last seven years have been the warmest on record, according to data from NASA, the NOAA and Berkeley Earth.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has for years been sounding the alarm about the risks related to global temperature rise and tried to convince world governments to agree to limit greenhouse gas emissions so as to keep average temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

In its most recent report, which was issued in February, the IPCC reiterated that the planet could expect an increase in the kinds of severe weather consequences seen in recent years that have been liked to climate change.

“This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, said in a statement that accompanied the release of the report. “It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our well-being and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.”

Hurricane Ian exposed a flood insurance nightmare for homeowners in Florida

NBC News

Hurricane Ian exposed a flood insurance nightmare for homeowners in Florida

Phil McCausland – October 11, 2022

Hurricane Ian’s storm surge brought numerous feet of water into homes on Florida’s west coast, and left behind mold, muck, mud and a flood insurance nightmare for residents who want to rebuild.

Many Floridians who suffered extensive flooding did not carry a separate flood insurance policy to cover the damage caused by the deadly storm. It’s left homeowners — and even renters — with a hefty and, possibly, life-changing expense that could decide whether they are rendered homeless.

Susan Cavanaugh and her two kids are living through that ordeal after the first floor of their home on Sanibel Island, where all three live and work, was engulfed by the storm surge. While going through a costly divorce earlier this year, Cavanaugh’s flood insurance coverage lapsed.

Now she doesn’t know how to get her family back into their home without an insurance check to pay for contractors and building materials.

“I can only do so much as a single mom,” said Cavanaugh, who is staying in a motel and is unsure where to live next. “We just want to go back to the house. It’s been deemed structurally sound, but we have to get it back online and it’s not just a cosmetic issue. It’s going to take blood, sweat and tears and it’s going to take a lot of muscle and a lot of work to get there.”

Image: Resident Pamela Brislin who has lived on Sanibel Island since 2020 cleans up the damage from Hurricane Ian, on Oct. 6, 2022, in Sanibel Island, Fla. (Scott Smith / AP)

Sanibel Island last month suffered a direct hit from the Category 4 storm and the surge of water, up to 15 feet in some places, it brought from the gulf into people’s homes. The community remains inaccessible by car, forcing many to pay boat captains to ferry them to begin the cleanup.

Cavanaugh is not alone in facing flood damage without the backing of insurance coverage. Many people in the small coastal community, which faces the Gulf of Mexico southwest of Fort Myers, did not have flood insurance coverage.

What’s more, Sanibel Island is a microcosm of a greater insurance challenge facing Florida and the country.

Only about 18.5% of homes in Florida counties that faced a mandatory or voluntary evacuation order the evening before Hurricane Ian landed had a flood insurance policy with the National Flood Insurance Program, the federal government program administered by FEMA, according to an analysis conducted by the risk management consulting firm Milliman. Even in designated flood hazard zones within those counties, fewer than half of the homes had a policy on file.

It appears that, despite an increased occurrence of devastating flood events, a declining percentage of people nationwide have flood insurance policies. The number of policies maintained by the National Flood Insurance Program has declined by nearly 700,000 since 2008, according to data acquired from the federal agency.

“There are many factors that influence this drop in policyholders, including the economic impact of the pandemic, the housing market, affordability, or purchasing flood insurance from the private market,” David Maurstad, the senior executive of the National Flood Insurance Program, said in a statement.

Image: A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter takes off, seen from inside a home damaged by Hurricane Ian on Sanibel Island, Fla., on Sept. 30, 2022. (Steve Helber / AP filw)

He said that FEMA “continues to market the flood insurance product throughout the country” in an effort “to increase the number of properties covered by flood insurance.” Currently about 5 million policies are under the National Flood Insurance Program, which was created in the 1960s because the private insurance market increasingly declined to cover flood events.

It’s an expensive undertaking for the federal government. Since 2008, the program has paid out $40.1 billion to slightly more than 910,000 claims, according to FEMA’s data, and the agency still owes about $20 billion to the U.S. Treasury after borrowing funds to pay out many of those claims.

With climate change leading to more dangerous storms and expanding the risk of flooding, the U.S. and its coastal communities are beginning to suffer the pitfalls of building in flood-prone areas.

“The risk is there as weather losses are on the rise,” said Lynne McChristian, the director of the Office of Risk Management & Insurance Research at the University of Illinois, “and those exposures are growing because we’re building more expensive things in the most vulnerable areas.”

That has become a growing challenge for FEMA, as it often provides aid to communities prone to flooding. It has hoped that more people in these areas would sign up for insurance — especially those in flood-prone areas. FEMA guidelines have gone so far as to refuse aid to those who have received funds from the federal agency for flooding in the past if they have not picked up flood insurance coverage in the meantime.

“I think anybody who lives near water should certainly purchase flood insurance because it’s your No. 1 tool to help protect your family and your home after the storm,” FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN last week.

Image: Damaged vehicles and debris are seen on Sanibel Island, Fla., during Hurricane Ian. (Chuck Larsen / SantivaChronicle.com via AP)

One significant issue is that many homeowners assume a typical homeowner’s insurance policy covers floods. Florida law requires insurers to inform their clients about the coverage gap, but many Floridians expressed surprise to find their policy did not cover flooding.

One Florida requirement is that each policy at issuance and renewal must include in at least 18-point bold font four sentences warning that a separate flood policy is necessary. “Your homeowner’s insurance policy does not include coverage for damage resulting from a flood even if hurricane winds and rain caused the flood to occur,” the warning text states.

“I think people might read them less now because it’s all electronic,” McChristian said of the policies and the warnings. “Regulators in several states have tried to do it, but it’s not moving the needle.”

Affordability also remains an essential reason many gave for forgoing flood insurance. The average cost of flood insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program is $995 a year, according to Forbes Advisor analysis. That number can fluctuate depending on the location and floodwater risk the home faces, and it is an additional cost on top of other homeowner policies. That can make it unaffordable or, at the very least, a burden.

Although mortgage companies often require coverage upon purchase of a home in areas prone to flooding, some allow their coverage to lapse as costs have gone up. Others, who own their homes outright, no longer have to maintain that coverage.

Leslie Weyhrich said that she and her husband decided to cut back on insurance coverage for their second home on Sanibel Island in May after 15 years of holding a policy. Each year the price grew astronomically and they knew they would be facing another massive cost for a needed roof repair. Now they will be stuck footing the bill for much of the damage themselves.

“It went up significantly, maybe about five or six years ago,” said Weyhrich. “But every year that bill came due, we discussed whether it was worth it or not because the deductibles were so high, it didn’t cover as much as it used to and it just made less fiscal sense.”

But decisions like these could prove existential for many on the island and for communities across Florida, and it is an issue that is unlikely to be sorted in the near term and could lead to litigation.

“Half the people I’ve talked to on this island are uninsured for flooding and that is absolutely terrifying,” said Chuck Bergstrom, a realtor on Sanibel Island who stayed in his home through the storm. “And whether you have it or not, these insurance companies aren’t here to help these folks right now. They’ll negotiate as hard as they can.”

Those who have flood coverage are also gearing up for their own insurance nightmare as they debate with their carriers whether a home’s damage was caused by floodwaters or the hurricane’s wind.

The separate policies means companies on both sides are likely to have a drawn-out battle that could become litigious.

“The lawyers are going to have a field day with this,” Bergstrom added. “I mean, who pays for what exactly?”

Hurricane Ian traumatized Floridians. It also erased their nest eggs.

Politico

Hurricane Ian traumatized Floridians. It also erased their nest eggs.

Zack Colman and Katy O’Donnell – October 10, 2022

Hurricane Ian has displaced thousands of Floridians’ whose homes are now uninhabitable. The storm took their safety nets with it, too.

As Florida tallies the immediate tab from its deadliest hurricane in decades, the destruction it wreaked on homes will erase retirees’ nest eggs and families’ primary way of passing along wealth to new generations. That exposed the dangers of American dependence on housing as most people’s financial backstop and lifeline.

“The impacts of Hurricane Ian have stretched far and wide, especially to Southwest Florida seniors who’ve invested most of their livelihoods in properties across my district,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who represents Lee County, said in an emailed statement. “In addition to the tremendous economic pressures induced by soaring inflation, this storm contributes additional pain to many on fixed incomes.”

As climate change makes natural disasters more frequent and severe — and threatens the viability of living in much of the country — Ian offered new evidence that Americans’ retirement funds and assets are in jeopardy in vulnerable areas.

“This is an enormous wealth shock,” said Benjamin Keys, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, who has researched the effects of climate-driven sea-level rise on Florida’s housing market.

It’s a problem with no easy policy solutions.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates the government-controlled companies behind about half of the $12 trillion residential mortgage market, has begun assessing the risks that climate change poses to the mortgage and housing market. But it has historically allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood insurance program to take the lead in protecting borrowers against flood damage — though independent analyses show that FEMA’s flood maps underestimate how many homes face flood danger.

Home ownership is the primary way most Americans build wealth. For decades, federal policy has placed a priority on making more Americans homeowners, seeing it as the clearest way to achieve long-lasting financial security and generational prosperity. But climate change is jeopardizing all that.

The risks Ian revealed are most pressing for retirees. People over 65 years old make up 29 percent of the population in Lee County, Fla. — ground zero for Ian damage — according to Census data. Among midsize cities, business research firm AdvisorSmith foundthat the Lee County communities of Cape Coral and Fort Myers experienced the sixth- and seventh-greatest increases nationally in the numbers of people older than 65 years in 2019. Those populations have grown even more since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Many of the Fort Myers and Cape Coral neighborhoods that Ian battered are middle-income, blue-collar areas, not at all like the multimillion-dollar mansions just down the coast in Naples, said Dave Stevens, a former CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association and Federal Housing Administration commissioner. They’re also hotbeds for retirees who had “their life savings wrapped up in real estate” and now live on a fixed income, he added.

“It’s an important asset — obviously not one that’s replaceable, unless you’re part of the wealthy class,” said Stevens, who is now CEO of consulting firm Mountain Lake Consulting.

Retirees whose homes were destroyed also lost an important part of their wealth planning, said Jesse Keenan, professor of sustainable real estate at Tulane University’s School of Architecture. The market for reverse mortgages, which allow a person with a fully paid-off home to borrow against the house in exchange for cash, is “very strong” in Cape Coral, he said. But without that real estate asset, there’s no way to tap into that equity for everyday living.

If these people already had a reverse mortgage, they’re likely using those funds to make repairs now — especially if they were uninsured, Keenan added.

Climate science studies have shown that warmer temperatures are causing hurricanes to accelerate and grow stronger whenever they do form. Early analyses of Ian showed that human-driven climate change probably made the hurricane drop 10 percent more rainfall compared with a world without warming. That tracks with other recent hurricanes such as Harvey in 2017, which devastated the Houston area with more than 51 inches of rain when it stalled over the city for three days.

Climate and natural disaster risk-modeling firm RMS estimated that Ian inflicted between $53 billion and $74 billion in private market insured losses, with a best estimate of $67 billion. That would make Ian the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history, slotting behind Hurricane Katrina’s nearly $90 billion in insured losses in 2021 dollars, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Ian will result in anywhere from $30 billion to $42 billion of insured damage from wind alone, without accounting for flooding damage, according to an estimate from CoreLogic, a property data and analytics company.

Homes with federally backed mortgages in the 100-year floodplain are required to carry flood insurance, but that covers only up to $250,000. In contrast, the average mortgage borrower in the area covering Cape Coral and Fort Myers has $316,499 of equity in their homes, according to CoreLogic.

Boosting flood insurance would buttress homeowners against severe losses. But many homeowners fail to keep current with legal requirements to purchase that protection — a subject that’s been part of congressional inquiries and Government Accountability Office reports. And FEMA, despite administering the federal flood insurance program, maintains it does not have the ability to enforce those requirements.

Homes that are fully paid off don’t require flood insurance, with many choosing to forgo it. And even homes outside the 100-year floodplain, where this insurance is not required, incur flood damage. In Lee County, federal flood insurance uptake was far higher than the national average, but still reached only 30 percent of households, according to FEMA data.

“Issues related to flood insurance are convoluted and frustrating, and Hurricane Ian has brought these matters to the forefront, which the State will likely address soon,” Donalds said in his emailed statement.

Even people who have insurance must spend up to their deductibles before their claims are covered, which can be difficult for retirees on fixed incomes.

“For retirees it’s a double whammy, because many fixed-income retirees buy their homes with cash, and even if they’re in the flood zone they don’t have coverage because the [National Flood Insurance Program] enforces through mortgages,” said Tom Larsen, associate vice president for hazard and risk management at CoreLogic.

“Flood damage can go from zero to a very high number very rapidly,” he said.

Fort Myers is far from the only place where personal safety nets and inheritances are under siege.

Rising temperatures in cities such as Orlando and Phoenix could start to lower the value of real estate and the ability of Americans to depend on their homes as a safety net.

Investment research firm RisQ, real estate company Climate Core Capital and the Harvard Graduate School of Design explored how quickly some of the nation’s most desirable real estate markets would heat up beyond the point of tolerable human living in what they called a “Death Valley Index.” They measured how soon certain areas’ climates would mimic the historical climate of Death Valley, the site of the hottest-ever temperature on record, where between 1981 and 2010 daily temperatures hit 95 degrees Fahrenheit across 161 days on average every year.

The exercise concluded that Miami and Houston will achieve that mark by 2026 when high temperatures and humidity are taken into account. Austin would reach it by 2027, Tampa by 2029 and Phoenix by 2038. Orlando already has.

That climate would bring health risks from being outdoors even for a few hours, raising questions of how desirable those locations will be in the future, said Owen Woolcock, a partner at Climate Core Capital. People who purchased homes in those areas — many of which are retiree havens — could be left with properties worth less than what they were purchased for, Woolcock said.

“People need to think about climate change as a wealth destruction event,” he said. “It is going to make these enormous incisions in net worth at the household level and in the regional or local economy level.”

I love living in Florida, but the sun-and-surf lifestyle eventually exacts a price

Miami Herald

I love living in Florida, but the sun-and-surf lifestyle eventually exacts a price

Ana Veciana -Suarez – October 7, 2022

For those who have spent most of their lives in Florida, as I have, the apocalyptic photos that emerged after Hurricane Ian are painfully familiar. The flooded roadways. The shattered storefronts. The flattened landscapes. The unending miles of debris. And more than 100 dead in my state alone.

I remember those horrors too well. I survived Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5, packed into a walk-in closet with seven other family members, including four terrified children. During that interminable night, I discovered that few things sound as scary as howling winds and splintering roof trusses. However, that wasn’t the worst part of the experience.

Rebuilding was. Gusts subsided and water receded but putting a life — and a home — back together took much longer. After Andrew, we were out of our house for almost seven months. The kitchen wasn’t done when we moved back, but I was desperate to return. I was very pregnant with my youngest and needed the semblance of a routine.

It would take well over a decade for my wider neighborhood to recover, and the experience marked me for life. I came away with a renewed respect for the wonder — and danger — of nature.

We’ve been through other hurricanes since 1992. Wilma, a Category 3, tore through the roof of our old house in 2005. That same year two other hurricanes — Rita and Katrina — slapped us hard, too. Then, in 2017, Irma flooded a trailer home we own on the state’s west coast. But none matched the fury of Andrew. I hope none ever do.

Nonetheless, Ian has been particularly difficult for me to process. Part of that dread, I think, is the path it was predicted to take. A son and a brother live in St. Petersburg, both a short walk from Tampa Bay. Another son lives south of Orlando. All would’ve gotten slammed had Ian not made landfall elsewhere.

They suffered minimal damage — water seeping through windows, a gate fence blown away — but nothing like the devastation in counties farther south. Some of our friends, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky. Those in Fort Myers and Naples have suffered huge property losses, and one farther inland in Bartow reported several trees down. We suspect that the quaint spots we like to visit on that side of the coast may never reopen. After all, calamities have a way of rearranging the map of entire towns.

So, yes, news of this kind should unsettle me, but there’s more to my disquiet than that. These hurricanes and several near-misses have forced me to reassess not only how I live but also where and why.

I claim residence in what one expert called “the most hurricane-ravaged state in the country.” There’s a good reason for that. We have 1,350 miles of coastline, second only to Alaska in that department. We also happen to stick out like a middle finger into warm, hurricane-feeding ocean waters. In short, we’ve got a target on our back.

That target — at least in terms of numbers — has only gotten bigger. Florida’s population has grown 60% since Hurricane Andrew, and most newcomers have settled along the coasts, where the scenery is amazing but also where hurricane forces can be most destructive. That sun-and-surf lifestyle eventually exacts a price.

Knowing this, I must ask myself the inescapable questions. Should I continue to live in a place where experiencing a monster storm (again) is just a matter of time? Are there better ways to build in the Sunshine State? How much risk am I willing to assume for a slice of paradise?

Arriving at the answers is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought.

Hurricane Ian: residents return to battered homes as death toll rises

The Guardian

Hurricane Ian: residents return to battered homes as death toll rises

Richard Luscombe in Miami – October 6, 2022

<span>Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP</span> — Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Residents of south-west Florida were on Thursday returning for a first look at damage wreaked on their homes by Hurricane Ian, as the storm’s death toll continued to rise and details emerged about the victims.

Inhabitants of Sanibel, Captiva and Pine Island were among the first to get a glimpse after authorities still searching for survivors from the 28 September storm gave the go-ahead for civilians to return.

A steady stream of residents arrived, mostly on small chartered motorboats, after sections of the Sanibel and Pine Island causeways, the only road links to the mainland, were swept away by 150mph winds and a 12ft (3.6 metres) storm surge.

“We feel, as a community, that if we leave the island, abandon it, nobody is going to take care of that problem of fixing our road in and out,” said a Pine Island resident, Leslie Arias.

The number of storm-related deaths rose to at least 101 on Thursday, eight days after the storm made landfall in south-west Florida. According to reports from the Florida medical examiners commission, 98 of those deaths were in Florida. Five people were also killed in North Carolina, three in Cuba and one in Virginia.

Ian is the second-deadliest storm to hit the mainland US in the 21st century after Hurricane Katrina, which left more than 1,800 people dead in 2005. The deadliest hurricane ever to hit the US was the Galveston Hurricane in 1900 that killed as many as 8,000 people.

But Ian’s fury makes it the deadliest storm to strike Florida since the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 claimed more than 430 lives.

The oldest victim of Ian was a 96-year-old man found trapped under a car in high water in Charlotte county, the medical examiners’ report said.

A 73-year-old man in Lee county “shot himself after seeing property damage due to the hurricane”.

In Manatee county, a 71-year-old woman died after being blown over: “The decedent was outside her residence smoking a cigarette when a gust of wind from the hurricane blew her off the porch and she subsequently struck her head on a concrete step.”

Most victims drowned, underlining that the storm surge was the deadliest part of the hurricane.

Not included in the report are five deaths in North Carolina, one in Virginia and three in Cuba, when Ian swept across the west of the island two days before gaining power in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and slamming into the south-western Florida coast.

Authorities in Florida have been criticized for issuing evacuation orders too late, although Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, and county officials have defended their actions.

DeSantis has claimed, falsely, that Lee county was not yet included in the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC) forecast track 72 hours before the storm hit, and that it was predicted instead to strike Tampa, about 120 miles north.

The NHC “cone of uncertainty” included parts of Lee county during that time frame, including Cayo Costa, where Ian made first landfall.

More than 215,000 customers remained without power across Florida, authorities said, while thousands of workers sought to repair grids.

On Pine Island, piles of rubble and debris have replaced many homes, power lines and wooden poles littering yards and roadways.

In a visit to the worst-hit areas on Thursday, Joe Biden promised the resources of the federal government would be available “as long as it takes”. Some estimates have calculated the damage at $55bn.

The president met local residents, small business owners and relief workers in Fort Myers, praising the cooperation between state and federal agencies.

Noting that the recovery could take months or years, he said: “The only thing I can assure you is that the federal government will be here until it’s finished. After the television cameras have moved on, we’re still going to be here with you.”

DeSantis, seen as a potential rival to Biden in the 2024 presidential election, also struck a conciliatory tone.

“We are cutting through the red tape and that’s from local government, state government, all the way up to the president. We appreciate the team effort,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

The big reason Florida insurance companies are failing isn’t just hurricane risk – it’s fraud and lawsuits

The Conversation

The big reason Florida insurance companies are failing isn’t just hurricane risk – it’s fraud and lawsuits

Shahid S. Hamid – October 5, 2022

Shahid S. Hamid is Professor of Finance, Florida International University.

The big reason Florida insurance companies are failing isn’t just hurricane risk – it’s fraud and lawsuits

Hurricane Ian’s widespread damage is another disaster for Florida’s already shaky insurance industry. Even though home insurance rates in Florida are nearly triple the national average, insurers have been losing money. Six have failed since January 2022. Now, insured losses from Ian are estimated to exceed US$40 billion

Hurricane risk might seem like the obvious problem, but there is a more insidious driver in this financial train wreck.

Finance professor Shahid Hamid, who directs the Laboratory for Insurance at Florida International University, explained how Florida’s insurance market got this bad – and how the state’s insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, now carrying more than 1 million policies, can weather the storm.

What’s making it so hard for Florida insurers to survive?

Florida’s insurance rates have almost doubled in the past five years, yet insurance companies are still losing money for three main reasons.

One is the rising hurricane risk. Hurricanes Matthew (2016), Irma (2017) and Michael (2018) were all destructive. But a lot of Florida’s hurricane damage is from water, which is covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, rather than by private property insurance.

Another reason is that reinsurance pricing is going up – that’s insurance for insurance companies to help when claims spike.

But the biggest single reason is the “assignment of benefits” problem, involving contractors after a storm. It’s partly fraud and partly taking advantage of loose regulation and court decisions that have affected insurance companies.

It generally looks like this: Contractors will knock on doors and say they can get the homeowner a new roof. The cost of a new roof is maybe $20,000-$30,000. So, the contractor inspects the roof. Often, there isn’t really that much damage. The contractor promises to take care of everything if the homeowner assigns over their insurance benefit. The contractors can then claim whatever they want from the insurance company without needing the homeowner’s consent.

If the insurance company determines the damage wasn’t actually covered, the contractor sues.

So insurance companies are stuck either fighting the lawsuit or settling. Either way, it’s costly.

Other lawsuits may involve homeowners who don’t have flood insurance. Only about 14% of Florida homeowners pay for flood insurance, which is mostly available through the federal National Flood Insurance Program. Some without flood insurance will file damage claims with their property insurance company, arguing that wind caused the problem.

How widespread of a problem are these lawsuits?

Overall, the numbers are pretty striking.

About 9% of homeowner property claims nationwide are filed in Florida, yet 79% of lawsuits related to property claims are filed there.

The legal cost in 2019 was over $3 billion for insurance companies just fighting these lawsuits, and that’s all going to be passed on to homeowners in higher costs.

Insurance companies had a more than $1 billion underwriting loss in 2020 and again in 2021. Even with premiums going up so much, they’re still losing money in Florida because of this. And that’s part of the reason so many companies are deciding to leave.

Assignment of benefits is likely more prevalent in Florida than most other states because there is more opportunity from all the roof damage from hurricanes. The state’s regulation is also relatively weak. This may eventually be fixed by the legislature, but that takes time and groups are lobbying against change. It took a long time to pass a law saying the attorney fee has to be capped.

How bad is the situation for insurers?

We’ve seen about a dozen companies be declared insolvent or leave since early 2020. At least six dropped out this year alone.

Thirty more are on the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation’s watch list. About 17 of those are likely to be or have been downgraded from A rating, meaning they’re no longer considered to be in good financial health.

Florida beachfront paradise shattered by Hurricane Ian

Reuters

Florida beachfront paradise shattered by Hurricane Ian

Rod Nickel – October 5, 2022

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – Nearly a week after Hurricane Ian hammered southwest Florida, once tony Fort Myers Beach is a nearly deserted disaster zone where destroyed beach houses now mar the postcard views that made this stretch of the Gulf Coast famous.

The town on Estero Island facing the Gulf of Mexico was one of the communities hit hardest by the Category 4 hurricane, which killed more than 100 people in the state when it struck last week.

Fort Myers Beach, a barrier island that stands between the Gulf and the city of Fort Myers, has a population of 5,600, living in bungalows and posh multistory beach houses. Many retirees living here have second homes elsewhere in the United States.

The island’s soft, white sands and teal waves now make for a stark backdrop to rows of pastel storefronts that are missing walls and windows, a landmark pier stripped to its piles, crushed beach houses, and foundations swept entirely clean of the houses that once rested on them.

At one address, a set of concrete steps leads to nowhere. Furniture, plumbing fixtures and drywall are scattered everywhere.

Rescue teams directed by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are conducting a second round of door-to-door checks for survivors, equipped with dogs and cameras on extending poles.

“It’s going to be a long recovery,” said Ignatius Carroll, a representative of Florida Task Force 2, a search-and-rescue unit that is part of FEMA’s efforts.

“See that debris from the house?” Carroll asks during a tour of Fort Meyers Beach, pointing to a home with its front yard piled high like a junkyard. “That came from another house over here.”

The first 48 hours after a disaster hits are critical to finding survivors, although many people in hurricane-prone areas stock 72 hours’ worth of food and water, Carroll said. Even so, it’s possible to find people days later than that, depending on their provisions, he said.

Steve Duello, 67, a retired grocery store executive from St. Louis, said he was devastated on Tuesday to see the damage to his Fort Myers Beach home for the first time since the hurricane hit.

His ruined house filled with 8 feet of water during the storm, and Duello said he’s unsure whether he’ll rebuild, even though he has been coming to the beach since he was 14.

“It’s way too early. Right now our guts have been torn out. I don’t want to ever go through that again.”

Fort Myers Beach “looks like Hiroshima or Nagasaki,” he said, referring to Japanese cities where U.S. forces dropped atomic bombs during World War Two.

Another island resident, who declined to give his name, stayed through the storm, and has no plans to leave.

“I love this place. I don’t want to live anywhere else but here,” said the elderly, deeply tanned man, wearing shorts and no shirt.

“My daughter wants to pick me up and go back to New York. I don’t want to go.”

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Fort Myers Beach; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

‘Forever chemicals’ in deer, fish challenge hunters, tourism

Associated Press

‘Forever chemicals’ in deer, fish challenge hunters, tourism

Patrick Whittle – October 5, 2022

FILE - A 10-point white-tailed deer walks through the woods in Freeport, Maine, on Nov. 10, 2015. Wildlife agencies are finding elevated levels of PFAS chemicals, also called "forever chemicals," in game animals such as deer, prompting new restrictions on hunting and fishing in some parts of the country. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) — A 10-point white-tailed deer walks through the woods in Freeport, Maine, on Nov. 10, 2015. Wildlife agencies are finding elevated levels of PFAS chemicals, also called “forever chemicals,” in game animals such as deer, prompting new restrictions on hunting and fishing in some parts of the country. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

This photo provided by the National Wildlife Federation shows a sign warning hunters not to eat deer because of high amounts of toxic chemicals in their meat, in Oscoda, Mich., March 26, 2021. Wildlife agencies in some parts of the country are finding elevated levels of PFAS chemicals in game animals such as deer, prompting new restrictions on hunting and fishing. (Photo by Drew YoungeDyke, National Wildlife Federation via AP) — This photo provided by the National Wildlife Federation shows a sign warning hunters not to eat deer because of high amounts of toxic chemicals in their meat, in Oscoda, Mich., March 26, 2021. Wildlife agencies in some parts of the country are finding elevated levels of PFAS chemicals in game animals such as deer, prompting new restrictions on hunting and fishing. (Photo by Drew Younge Dyke, National Wildlife Federation via AP)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Wildlife agencies in the U.S. are finding elevated levels of a class of toxic chemicals in game animals such as deer — and that’s prompting health advisories in some places where hunting and fishing are ways of life and key pieces of the economy.

Authorities have detected the high levels of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in deer in several states, including Michigan and Maine, where legions of hunters seek to bag a buck every fall. Sometimes called “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment, PFAS are industrial compounds used in numerous products, such as nonstick cookware and clothing.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched an effort last year to limit pollution from the chemicals, which are linked to health problems including cancer and low birth weight.

But discovery of the chemicals in wild animals hunted for sport and food represents a new challenge that some states have started to confront by issuing “do not eat” advisories for deer and fish and expanding testing for PFAS in them.

“The fact there is an additional threat to the wildlife — the game that people are going out to hunt and fish — is a threat to those industries, and how people think about hunting and fishing,” said Jennifer Hill, associate director of the Great Lakes Regional Center for the National Wildlife Federation.

PFAS chemicals are an increasing focus of public health and environmental agencies, in part because they don’t degrade or do so slowly in the environment and can remain in a person’s bloodstream for life.

The chemicals get into the environment through production of consumer goods and waste. T hey also have been used in firefighting foam and in agriculture. PFAS-tainted sewage sludge has long been applied to fields as fertilizer and compost.

In Maine, where the chemicals were detected in well water at hundreds of times the federal health advisory level, legislators passed a law in 2021 requiring manufacturers to report their use of the chemicals and to phase them out by 2030. Environmental health advocates have said Maine’s law could be a model for other states, some working on their own PFAS legislation.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill in September that bans the chemicals from cosmetics sold in the state. And more than 20 states have proposed or adopted limits for PFAS in drinking water, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

More testing will likely find the chemicals are present in other game animals besides deer, such as wild turkeys and fish, said David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a hunting and outdoors advocacy group.

The discovery could have a negative impact on outdoor tourism in the short term, Trahan said. “If people are unwilling to hunt and fish, how are we going to manage those species?” he said. “You’re getting it in your water, you’re getting it in your food, you’re getting it in wild game.”

Maine was one of the first states to detect PFAS in deer. The state issued a “do not eat” advisory last year for deer harvested in the Fairfield area, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Portland, after several of the animals tested positive for elevated levels.

The state is now expanding the testing to more animals across a wider area, said Nate Webb, wildlife division director at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “Lab capacity has been challenging,” he said, “but I suspect there will be more facilities coming online to help ease that burden — in Maine and elsewhere in the country.”

Wisconsin has tested deer, ducks and geese for PFAS, and as a result issued a “do not eat” advisory for deer liver around Marinette, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) north of Green Bay. The state also asked fishermen to reduce consumption of Lake Superior’s popular rainbow smelt to one meal per month.

Some chemicals, including PFAS, can accumulate in the liver over time because the organ filters the chemicals from the blood, Wisconsin’s natural resources department told hunters. New Hampshire authorities have also issued an advisory to avoid consuming deer liver.

Michigan was the first state to assess PFAS in deer, said Tammy Newcomb, senior executive assistant director for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

The state issued its first “do not eat” advisory in 2018 for deer taken in and near Oscoda Township. Michigan has since issued an advisory against eating organs, such as liver and kidneys, from deer, fish or any other wild game anywhere in the state. It has also studied waterfowl throughout the state in areas of PFAS surface water contamination.

The state’s expanded testing also has proven beneficial because it helped authorities find out which areas don’t have a PFAS problem, Newcomb said.

“People like to throw up their arms and say we can’t do anything about it. I like to point to our results and say that’s not true,” Newcomb said. “Finding PFAS as a contaminant of concern has been the exception and not the rule.”

The chemical has also been found in shellfish that are collected recreationally and commercially. Scientists from the Florida International University Institute of Environment sampled more than 150 oysters from around the state and detected PFAS in every one, according to their study in August. Natalia Soares Quinete, an assistant professor in the institute’s chemistry and biochemistry department, described the chemicals as “a long-term poison” that jeopardizes human health.

Dr. Leo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine who has studied PFAS, said the best way to avoid negative health effects is reducing exposure. But, Trasande said that’s difficult to do because the chemicals are so commonplace and long-lasting in the environment.

“If you’re seeing it in humans, you’re likely going to see the effects in animals,” he said.

Wildlife authorities have tried to inform hunters of the presence of PFAS in deer with posted signs in hunting areas as well as advisories on social media and the internet. One such sign, in Michigan, told hunters that high amounts of PFAS “may be found in deer and could be harmful to your health.”

Kip Adams, chief conservation officer for the National Deer Association, said the discovery of PFAS in states like Maine and Michigan is very concerning to hunters.

“With the amount of venison my family eats, I can’t imagine not being able to do that,” Adams said. “To this point, everything we’ve done has been about sharing information and making sure people are aware of it.

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Florida’s Leaders Opposed Climate Aid. Now They’re Depending on It.

The New York Times

Florida’s Leaders Opposed Climate Aid. Now They’re Depending on It.

Christopher Flavelle and Jonathan Weisman – October 4, 2022

A helicopter carries evacuees from Pine Island, Fla., on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022. (Hilary Swift/The New York Times)

Hurricane Ian’s wrath made clear that Florida faces some of the most severe consequences of climate change anywhere in the country. But the state’s top elected leaders have opposed federal spending to help fortify states against and recover from climate disasters, as well as efforts to confront their underlying cause: the burning of fossil fuels.

Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott opposed last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, which devotes some $50 billion to help states better prepare for events like Ian, because they said it was wasteful. And in August, they joined their fellow Republicans in the Senate to vote against a new climate law, which invests $369 billion in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the largest such effort in the country’s history.

At the same time, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has blocked the state’s pension fund from taking climate change into account when making investment decisions, saying that politics should be absent from financial calculations.

In the aftermath of Ian, those leaders want federal help to rebuild their state — but don’t want to discuss the underlying problem that is making hurricanes more powerful and destructive.

As Hurricane Ian approached Florida’s coast, the storm grew in intensity because it passed over ocean water that was 2 to 3 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, NASA data show. Its destructive power was made worse by rising seas; the water off the southwest coast of Florida has risen more than 7 inches since 1965, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Finally, warmer air resulting from climate change increased the amount of rain that Ian dropped on Florida by at least 10%, or about 2 extra inches in some places, according to a study released last week.

Rubio has secured millions of dollars to restore the Everglades as a way to store floodwaters and repair coral reefs to buffer storm surges. One of his House colleagues, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a South Florida Republican, has secured billions for climate resiliency.

But none of the top Republicans in the state have supported legislation to curb the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.

With its sun and offshore wind, Florida could be a leader in renewable energy, said Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat who represents Tampa. Instead, it imports natural gas that it burns to produce electricity.

“To not admit that climate change is real and we need to address it bodes nothing but a harm for the future for Florida and the nation,” said Charlie Crist, a former Republican Florida governor who won a House seat as a Democrat and is now challenging DeSantis’ reelection.

Hurricane Ian is far from the first time Florida has felt the impacts of climate change. In Miami, the rising ocean means streets and sidewalks regularly flood during high tide, even on sunny days. In the Florida Keys, officials are looking at raising roadbeds that will otherwise become impassable.

Yet the state’s leaders have long resisted what scientists say is needed to stave off a catastrophic future: an aggressive pivot away from gas, oil and coal and toward solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.

“Attempting to reverse-engineer the U.S. economy to absolve our past climate sins — either through a carbon tax or some ‘Green New Deal’ scheme — will fail,” Rubio wrote in 2019. “None of those advocates can point to how even the most aggressive (and draconian) plan would improve the lives of Floridians.”

Scott, the former governor of Florida who is now the state’s junior senator, has argued the cost of attacking climate change is just too great.

“We clearly want to and need to address the impacts of climate change,” Scott told NPR last summer. “But we’ve got to do it in a fiscally responsible manner. We can’t put jobs at risk.”

Hurricane Ian could be among the costliest storms to hit Florida, with losses estimated in the tens of billions.

The two senators also voted against last year’s infrastructure bill, which provided about $50 billion toward climate resilience — the country’s largest single investment in measures designed to better protect people against the effects of climate change.

That bill, which passed the Senate with support from 19 Republicans, included measures designed to help protect against hurricanes. It provided billions for sea walls, storm pumps, elevating homes, flood control and other projects.

Many of those measures were co-written by another coastal Republican, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who called it “a major victory for Louisiana and our nation.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also supported the bill. Both states face enormous threats from climate change.

But Rubio called it “wasteful,” while Scott said it was “reckless spending.” Both voted no.

Scott and DeSantis did not respond to requests for comment.

Dan Holler, a deputy chief of staff to Rubio, said the senator opposed the infrastructure bill because it included unnecessary measures, just as he opposed the final version of relief for Hurricane Sandy in 2013 because of what he called extraneous pork barrel spending.

But the larger issue, Holler said, is that those pushing broad measures to wean the nation from fossil fuels have yet to prove to Rubio that such efforts would actually slow sea level rise, calm storms or mitigate flooding.

Other Republicans offer similar explanations. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican candidate expected to win the House district around Tampa Bay, spoke of the devastation she said she saw in Fort Myers, Pine Island and Sanibel Island.

“The damage is so catastrophic, we are going to need help,” she said Monday.

But Luna pushed back hard on the need to address climate change by cutting fossil fuel emissions. She called it “completely bonkers” that the United States would harm its own economy “while we send manufacturing to a country that is one of the top polluters of the world,” referring to China.

Crist sounded almost sympathetic as he discussed the bind that Florida Republicans find themselves in — accepting donations from the oil and gas industry, unwilling to raise the issue of climate change with their most loyal voters, while surveying the damage it is doing to their state.

The oil and gas industry is not a major source of campaign cash for politicians in Florida, where offshore drilling is prohibited. Rubio has received $223,239 from the oil and gas industry since 2017, which puts the industry at 15th on his donor list, federal records show. Scott has received $236,483 from oil and gas, his 14th most generous industry.

But the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which Scott leads, has received $3.2 million in oil and gas donations this campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, eclipsed only by real estate, Wall Street and retirees. By contrast, the fossil fuel business isn’t among the top 20 industries that have given this cycle to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

“There’s an ‘ideological versus reality’ divide here that must be very excruciating to these Republican politicians,” Crist said.

Republicans in the state have taken steps to fund climate resilience and adaptation efforts but shy away from using the term “climate.” In 2017, Diaz-Balart, then the Republican chair of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds housing programs, secured $12 billion for “mitigation” measures in block grants to states and communities, $1.4 billion of that for Florida. The word “climate” did not appear in the definition of “mitigation.”

“If you’re from Florida, you should be leading on climate and environmental policy, and Republicans are still reticent to do that because they’re worried about primary politics,” Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from South Florida. “But on this, the consequences are so serious, it’s worth putting politics aside and addressing climate head on.”

While DeSantis announced a program last year to provide $1 billion over four years to local governments to address flooding, rising seas and other challenges, he has blocked his state’s pension plan from accounting for the environmental performance of companies in making investment decisions.

“We are prioritizing the financial security of the people of Florida over whimsical notions of a utopian tomorrow,” DeSantis said in a statement announcing the decision.

DeSantis’ record on other climate decisions may also come back to haunt him. As a congressman in 2013, he voted against a bill to provide extra disaster aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy — the same type of extra support that Florida is now seeking for Ian.

On Friday, Rubio and Scott wrote to their Senate colleagues asking them to support a package of disaster aid. Like DeSantis, Rubio opposed a similar measure after Sandy struck the Northeast in 2012. (Scott had not yet been elected to the Senate.)

Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of the CLEO Institute, a nonprofit group in Florida that promotes climate change education, advocacy and resilience, said the state’s top elected officials need to do much more than react after disaster strikes.

“Florida will continue to be on the front lines of more destructive hurricanes fueled by a warming climate,” Arditi-Rocha said. “We need Republican leaders to step up.”

Hurricane Ian aftermath: Tour of damage shows parts of Naples look like “a war zone”

Naples Daily News

Hurricane Ian aftermath: Tour of damage shows parts of Naples look like “a war zone”

Laura Layden, Naples Daily News – October 3, 2022

In a drive around the city, Naples Police Lieutenant Bryan McGinn pointed to some of the worst and costliest damage caused by Hurricane Ian.

On Friday, he whizzed around the city streets, as much as he could, driving through sludge, stopping at every dark traffic light and dodging clean-up and repair crews — and a slew of curious onlookers wanting to see the destruction for themselves.

Scene of Gulf Shore Boulevard North of stranded, flooded cars.

One of the worst-hit areas by the Category 4 storm? Gulf Shore Boulevard North — where the water had finally receded enough to have a better look at Ian’s wrath.

Sludge still filled much of the road, patio furniture lay tangled in the median, cars sat angled in front of condos, a sign of the powerful, unexpected surge that put them completely under water. A crooked boat sat in a parking lot, moved from its perch, with another halfway submerged in waters nearby.

Video: Hurricane Ian in North Naples

Assessing the damage: Aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Naples and Collier County in Florida

Flood help: Hurricane Ian flooded my house. What do I need to do now?

A boat displaced from its dock on Gulf Shore Boulevard North.

Residents had started the clean-up, dragging everything from drenched carpet to soaked couches to the curb. Along with a snarl of landscaping.

Clearly, there’s much more work to be done in the Moorings, Park Shore and elsewhere in the city. With gobs of debris started to make it to the curb.

City residents are picking up the pieces from Hurricane Ian after extreme flooding.

Boats uplifted from their docks

At the Village Shops on Venetian Bay, business owners worked to deal with the mess, a stranded boat sat in the parking lot, with no name on it.

“Unfortunately, there was a lot of water surging,” McGinn said. “That storm came in real fast.”

It wasn’t just water that roared onto the shore in the city. It was loads of sand and sediment from the Gulf of Mexico and Naples Bay, which did plenty of damage of its own.

Ian’s impact: Hurricane Ian causes flood damage in Naples and heavily damages Naples Pier

Naples mayor: Rebuilding from Hurricane Ian is going to ‘take time’

That sand and sediment turned into a slippery, sticky muck that covered city streets — and the insides of homes and businesses. Some have complained about its stench.

During the tour, McGinn pointed to an extra-wide, steel mobile mini storage container sitting near the intersection of 8th Street South and Broad Avenue, feet from the Cove Inn On Naples Bay, that mysteriously appeared there, likely from a construction site nearby, taking up the entire corner.

“That storage container doesn’t belong there,” he said.

Storage container deposited roadside by surging waters in Naples at 8th Street South and Broad Avenue South.

Its weight is in the thousands of pounds, showing the power of the surge.

In Crayton Cove, McGinn took a turn toward the City Dock, rebuilt a few years ago at a cost of $7 million. He happily reported it fared well.

Businesses are picking up the pieces

Nearby businesses, however, weren’t as lucky, including The Dock, a Naples landmark. It’s still standing, but crews worked busily to clean up its insides, which clearly saw a heavy impact from the storm surge.

Across the way, Napoli On The Bay, didn’t look so good either, with a water line stain halfway up the door.

Hurricane Ian: ‘Very difficult time’ as it will take weeks to assess Bonita Springs damage

“Pretty unbelievable,” McGinn said.

On Third Avenue South downtown, store owners scrambled to pick up the pieces. Chain saws roared, vacuum trucks rumbled as they sucked out water, and power washers echoed, as owners, employees and hired contractors worked to wash down all the sediment left behind on everything from parking lots to plant pots.

Water stains again showed just how high the water got.

Some business owners have lost virtually everything.

On Third Street and nearby Fifth Avenue South, shops, restaurants and other businesses have scrambled to reopen, if possible.

“Fortunately, our city is resilient,” McGinn said. “So, many business owners are making a push. They want to be able to help people. That’s what they do.”

Businesses are picking up the pieces on Third Street South in downtown Naples.

As soon as it could, Liki Tiki, the local “Tiki Bar” and classic BBQ restaurant on U.S. 41, reopened on Thursday, serving drinks only — because that’s all it could do.

“It was packed,” McGinn said. “It’s a good sight to see. It’s good camaraderie.”

Port Royal may have fared better than others

In Port Royal, known as one of the priciest neighborhoods in America, the damage didn’t seem as great. Signs of water intrusion were harder to spot, but landscaping took a hit, with a near-constant buzz of chain saws.

“A lot of these are new construction homes,” McGinn said. “So, maybe they did fare a little better.”

The Port Royal Club sustained damage.

Closer to the coast, surging waters forced some residents to their roofs, for higher ground, to wait out rescue crews.

“I’m sure there were lives lost,” McGinn said. “But we won’t know how many for some time. It’s hard to tell.”

Some of the stranded cars still spotted around the city, he said, are the result of residents driving around during the storm, failing to heed warnings. They had to walk or swim away, abandoning their vehicles, McGinn said.

“People were still out and about, not listening to shelter in place,” he said, or evacuation orders.

After the storm, vehicles blocking streets were taken to Baker Park, but eventually, the city ran out parking spaces for them.

Mansions on the Gulf could have seen extensive damage

On Gordon Drive, it’s hard to tell how much damage multimillion-dollar mansions sitting directly on the Gulf of Mexico took, but McGinn said the water and sand likely did a lot of damage to them.

Parts of Gordon Drive were still blocked on Friday, with piles of sand dropped by Ian still in the road.

Much of the city saw flooding.

“Even areas like Lake Park had several feet of water in their homes,” McGinn said, after the Gordon River flooded.

The Naples Pier is heavily damaged, but not destroyed.

“It’s sad,” McGinn said.

Treasure hunters and curious visitors at beach, near Naples Pier, damaged by Hurricane Ian, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022.

While beach ends, or public access points, haven’t reopened, residents and visitors alike have flocked to them, to see the damages with their own eyes shooting photos and videos to document the storm.

“This is how well people listen,” McGinn said. “I get it. Everybody wants to see how the city of Naples fared. It all comes from a good place.”

At the Horizon Way beach access in Park Shore, he pointed to what looked like structural damage at St. Croix Club condominiums, but it was hard to determine the extent of it.

“That’s no bueno,” McGinn said.

Parts of Naples look like a “war zone”

In the Moorings area, Regency Towers looked like it took a heavy hit too — along with other condos and homes.

“It looks like a war zone up here,” McGinn said.

While water wiped out the contents of condos, homes and businesses, he said, structural damage might not be extensive since winds weren’t as extreme as with past storms.

“Their personal property is gone,” McGinn said. “But they can be replaced over time.”

Looking over all the damage in Naples, it’s hard to fathom how bad others had it just one county over, McGinn said.

“What’s crazy is we are not even the hardest hit area,” he said.