Hurricane Ian, What Do We Learn?
The damage Hurricane Ian left behind is going to take years to fix, and in some cases, life may never return to the way it was. Anyone who has ever been to Southwest Florida knows how special it is. Ian’s path was the worst possible for the West Coast of Florida.
During the coverage leading up to the storm the experts were pegging Tampa as the place likely to get hit. Studies that have been done showing what a storm like Ian would do to Tampa may actually have underestimated the damage based on what just happened. As someone who lives in and loves Tampa, this storm got my attention as nothing has in the past. I thought we were prepared but seeing the kind of damage that happened so close by made me realize there were many holes in the plan.
Get George Siegal’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
We know how tragic it is for people who were hit by Ian, but for everyone else who avoided destruction, this is no time to breathe easy, this was a wake-up call. I had two guests on the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast this week. Aris Papadopoulos, the author of Resilience-The Ultimate Sustainability, and John Scardena, an expert in emergency and disaster management. We talked about what people who were near misses should be doing going forward.
Here’s the link to our website to listen to the podcast: Tell Us How to Make It Better
We’ve gone to Naples and Sanibel several times, so it really hurts seeing a place you love get damaged like that. It was also an opportunity to see the blueprint for a disaster in Tampa played out just a few hours south. I’m sure nobody living there could imagine what they are waking up with today and for years to come. Now that we’ve had this view of the future, what will we do about it?
If you want to help the people in Southwest Florida here’s a link to the Florida Disaster Fund: www.FloridaDisasterFund.org
