Flush Flor-i-daaaaaaaa.....

Is Ian Florida's 'big, sloppy' nightmare?

By ADAM ATON

Potential disaster in the form of Hurricane Ian is bearing down on Florida — just the latest example of 2022 testing the nation’s resilience to extreme weather and the effects of climate change.

The storm’s future path and strength remain somewhat unsettled. But the National Weather Service is warning that one potential landing zone, Tampa Bay, could face catastrophic impacts including 5 to 10 feet of storm surge, buildings “washing away” and flooded escape routes.

“This could be the storm that we hoped would never come to our shores,” Ken Welch, the mayor of St. Petersburg in Pinellas County, said in a news conference today. Mandatory evacuations have already started up and down Florida’s Gulf Coast, even as Ian still churned south of Cuba.

From droughts to wildfires to extreme heat, this year has already tested U.S. resilience to extreme weather. But hurricanes had been the outlier, with none making landfall in the U.S. until Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 18.

Ian — projected to peak as a Category 4 hurricane in the southeastern Gulf by early Wednesday, though possibly weakening before reaching Florida — could be the most challenging test yet.

Tampa Bay counts among the most vulnerable areas in Florida. Though it hasn’t taken a direct hurricane hit since the 1940s, the region’s geography and densely populated coast expose it to storm surges and flooding.

Modeling commissioned by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council suggests a major storm could paralyze the region for months or longer. Even a smaller storm could wreak havoc. About one in five buildings in Pinellas County risks flooding from a “big, sloppy” Category 1 or 2 hurricane, according to an analysis by the Tampa Bay Times.

Ian is especially worrisome because forecasters expect it to slow down as it approaches land, dumping rain over a fixed area where the ground is already soggy.

That’s on top of the possibility of widespread power outages. Past hurricanes have left some Floridians without power for weeks.

Ian isn’t the only worry. The state’s property insurance market is in free fall three decades after taking a beating from Hurricane Andrew, with six insurance companies declaring bankruptcy this year — the most recent coming this month, according to the News Service of Florida.

That has led Florida residents to crowd into the state-created insurer of last resort for their homeowners’ policies, E&E News’ Thomas Frank writes, creating the worst, most-expensive insurance market in the country.

One big caveat: It’s way too soon to focus on specific locations where the storm may land. Though the stretch from Fort Myers to Tampa Bay faces the greatest danger, Ian’s potential wind swath, rainfall and flash flooding risk cover such huge territory that millions of people need to pay attention. Florida’s Division of Emergency Management has more.