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Dear Diary. For those rich enough that can afford insurance and out of pocket repairs, any damage to their homes from Milton and Helene will be repaired. But what about homeowners that are middle class, who like the rest of us are barely scraping by? Some will opt to move out of the state to places like Georgia where both home prices and homeowners’ insurance is much cheaper. Thus, we will probably see the first wave of climate migrants out of Florida. Just how many is a good question.
Your periodic reminder that 15 years ago the entire global financial system nearly collapsed cos of a relatively small number of mortgage defaults in the US. This is what people mean when they talk about climate change being a systemic risk. https://t.co/wZSfQ6EuMD
Will Climate Change Transform the Florida Dream? Millions of Americans have moved to the Sunshine State over the last several decades, only to see Florida’s future collide with climate change.An apartment complex in Clearwater, Fla., on Thursday morning.Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York Times
In 1957, my grandparents moved from Provincetown, Mass., to Stuart, Fla., bringing with them my mother, who was 11 at the time, and her three brothers. For the next half-century, my family lived the Florida dream.
My grandfather helped develop Sailfish Point, an upscale housing community on a spit of land in Stuart jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. My grandmother ran a small store and tended to a growing congregation at the local church. Their children grew up playing on the beach and picking oranges off trees in the yard.
My mother left Florida as an adult, but two of her brothers remained in Stuart. And for most of my childhood, I spent summers there, playing in the waves and fishing near Lake Okeechobee.
Families like ours transformed Florida over the past 70 years or so. When my grandparents moved there, the state’s population was just over four million. Florida is now the third-most-populous state in the union, after California and Texas, with more than 22 million residents.
Now, on this October day, almost the entire state is feeling the effects of Hurricane Milton, which roared ashore Wednesday with catastrophic consequences. More than three million people are without power. At least five are dead. And “this was not the worst-case scenario,” as Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
Climate change in the Sunshine StateMilton is the second major hurricane to hit Florida in two weeks, and climate change is creating new risks across the state.
Warm oceans are making storms more powerful, sea level rise is leading to flooding and erosion, and overdevelopment is putting more people in jeopardy. All of which is raising new questions about the future of Florida.
Around midnight last night, as Milton was thrashing Orlando, I called the novelist and journalist Carl Hiaasen, a Florida legend and longtime chronicler of the state’s grifters and glories in books like “Hoot,” “Strip Tease” and “Bad Monkey.” Hiaasen, who often writes about environmental issues, told me that global warming had forever changed a state he loves.
“When I was a kid in the ’50s and ’60s, hurricanes were always thought of as a South Florida phenomena,” he said. “Now, there’s no place in Florida that’s safe.”
A home destroyed on Wednesday by a tornado in Fort Myers, Fla. Credit…Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Hiaasen lives near Fort Pierce, more than 120 miles north of Miami. Yesterday, a tornado hit one of his neighbor’s apartment buildings. His home was spared.
There is every indication that the natural threats will continue to get worse. The rapid intensification that made Milton so powerful is expected to become more common as oceans get warmer.
Scientists expect sea levels to rise several feet in some parts of Florida by the end of the century, according to a report by Resources for the Future, a nonprofit research group. That could lead to the displacement of millions of people and untold billions of dollars in damages, and it is prompting Miami to consider building a 20-foot sea wall to keep the rising tides at bay.
This year’s hurricane season isn’t over yet. Scientists predict that as the oceans keep heating up, more powerful storms will take aim at Florida more often.
“The future is what you’re watching tonight on the Weather Channel,” Hiaasen told me.
The lure of developmentBeyond the weather, Florida faces other challenges that are compounding the threats posed by climate change.
Two weeks ago, Hurricane Helene killed at least 11 people in Florida and inflicted widespread damage. Last year, Hurricane Idalia was not as bad as feared. But the year before that, Hurricane Ian cut a path of wreckage across the Gulf Coast, the same densely populated area now reeling from Helene and Milton.
Unrelenting development is placing ever more people, homes, businesses and infrastructure in the path of increasingly ferocious storms. That combination will inevitably lead to more damage, and more costly disasters.
“When you’re talking about selling every square inch of waterfront property for as much as you can sell it for, with only a cursory glance at what’s happening with the climate and hurricanes, it’s irresponsible,” Hiaasen said. “They built so many houses in the worst possible places, and they get wiped out, and they just put them back in the same place.”
Another problem: It’s getting harder to insure homes and businesses. Florida is now the most expensive state for homeowners insurance, and some insurers, including Farmers, are pulling out of the state. When the insurance companies can’t make money, Hiaasen said, you know things have gotten bad.
An additional complication is that many of Florida’s elected officials are unwilling to acknowledge the risks posed by man-made climate change. DeSantis this year signed a law barring state agencies from considering climate change when writing energy policy.
Florida’s disaster cycleDespite all this, Hiaasen believes Florida will endure.
The numbers bear this out. Even with storms getting worse and insurance premiums rising, people keep flocking south. In 2022, Florida was the fastest-growing state in the union, attracting almost half a million new residents.
“The nature of overdevelopment is that you always find someone else who wants to get out of the tough winters and come to Florida and is willing to take the risk until one storm, two storm, three storms hit, and then they bail,” Hiaasen said. “But there will be someone else that’s willing to buy that piece of property that’s under six feet of water tonight. There will be someone else willing to fall for that dream.”
Stuart was mostly spared from Milton’s wrath, but has been hit before. In 2004, two hurricanes, Frances and Jeanne, thrashed the city in the course of just three weeks. My family didn’t leave then, and they won’t be leaving now.
Hiaasen is also staying put.
“I don’t know where else I could live,” he said. “I mean, where else could I get this kind of material?”
Much More on Milton (Newest and most important items will be listed first. I’ll have updates as Friday rolls along):
Bill is smart in letting this exchange play out. Sheds some light. Nice job Bill in showing your empathy and humanity to a good woman who is doing her best to care for her neighbors and try to make sense of this. https://t.co/JE8NwWVOw7
Milton's evolution visualized through infrared & visible satellite, US-based radar network, and recon flight wind & surface pressure data.
Its extremely rapid intensification, pinhole eye, and subsequent extratropical transition & Florida tornado outbreak can be seen here: pic.twitter.com/NAqUAP2c1A
One other point about Milton - at *no* point was it forecast or expected to make landfall as a category 5 hurricane in Florida.
Even when it *was* a category 5 hurricane near the Yucatan, its peak wind speeds were expected to decrease due to wind shear from a nearby trough. pic.twitter.com/F4XvQFXPI3
I put together a satellite loop of #Milton's incredible lifecycle, spanning genesis, its extreme intensity, landfall in Florida, and extratropical transition. Its definitely one of the most unique tropical cyclones and I honestly can't believe it happened. pic.twitter.com/O4BFsvizcR
Corporate news media will do everything it can to frame #Milton as a singular event so people do not connect the dots with what the oil companies and their lies have to done to us and the planet.
An apartment complex in Clearwater, Fla., on Thursday morning.Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York Times
A home destroyed on Wednesday by a tornado in Fort Myers, Fla. Credit…Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images