>>A storm of unprecedented scale.

Hurricane Ian hit Florida, changing the face of communities across the state, destroying homes and uprooting lives.

Tonight, an in-depth look at the storm's impact, the challenges going forward and the lessons learned.

Hurricane Ian, In the Wake of the Storm starts now.

Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to this special edition of NewsNight.

I'm standing next to Lake Davis in downtown Orlando.

This is what this area looked like in the days after Hurricane Ian.

The storm trod a familiar path towards Florida's southwest coast, and it was hard not to see the parallels with past hurricanes like Irma and Charley.

But when the sun came up on the morning of September 29th, it was clear to see that our state was dealing with an unprecedented situation.

Ian's destruction laid bare.

This drone footage from the Lee County Sheriff's Office shows how the storm's high end category four winds dismantled Fort Myers Beach.

It's clear to see how it was one of the costliest natural disasters in American history and the deadliest hurricane to strike Florida since 1935.

A massive search and rescue effort and shell shocked residents.

>>It was very heart wrenching knowing that everything went.

But we'll dig out and salvage what we can and start all over.

>>Our partners at WGCU Public Media in southwest Florida captured this footage.

A mobile home park left in ruins, a scene repeated in countless places across the region.

>>This is what was the living room, the kitchen behind it.

>>This was all that was left of Dan Kunzs mobile home.

Like many others, though, he was left with hard decisions to make.

>>This is not rebuildable.

We have to wait and see what the park decides to do.

But this unit is along with most in here.

Clearly not rebuildable.

The toughest part is currently making decisions on what stays in to be trashed and what might be salvageable and where to put it.

That's the current decision.

>>After making landfall in the county, the storm cut a swath across the peninsula, inundating central Florida communities with record rainfall.

Flooding in Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Volusia and Flagler Counties left some neighborhoods submerged.

>>I promise you, we're going to be with you every step of the way.

The people of Florida.

To all of you, we're in this together.

>>Amid the devastation, the aftermath of the storm offered an opportunity for a rare moment of political unity.

President Biden standing next to Governor DeSantis.

Political foes putting their differences aside, at least temporarily.

>>Today, we have one job and only one job, and that's to make sure the people of Florida get everything that they need to fully, thoroughly recover.

We're one of the few nations in the world that on the basis of the crisis we face, we're the only nation that comes out of it better than we went into it.

And that's we're going to do this time around.

Come out of it better, because we're this is the United States of America.

And I emphasize united.

>>With losses from this storm expected in the tens of billions of dollars.

Governor DeSantis thanked the Biden administration for expediting a major disaster declaration.

>>We were very fortunate to have good coordination with the White House and with FEMA.

From the very beginning of this, we declared a state of emergency last Friday, September 23rd.

This wasn't even this was a disturbance out there by Columbia.

And then the next day, we got a major disaster declaration approved by the president.

And we really appreciated that.

And that basically set off the massive mobilization that we had ready to be able to respond to this storm.

>>In central Florida, the story was the water.

Hurricane Ian dumped well over a foot of rain in many places, inundating neighborhoods, often in underserved communities.

In the days afterwards, FEMA personnel hit the pavement in many areas to get the word out about the financial assistance available to help with storm damage.

>>I didn't get mine.

>>Oh, you didn't get it.

>>In Richmond Heights, resident Stella Sutton snapped these pictures of the flooding in her neighborhoods.

>>The sidewalk was covered and no vehicles could go up and down the road unless it was a truck and then it was coming up over the bumper.

Sutton applied for help to repair shingles and water damage in her home.

>>It will be the thing we need because right now we on a fixed income.

And we can't afford any extra expenses and this was unexpected.

We didn't have time to save or anything like that for it.

This came up and we were blessed that we didn't have more damage.

And flooding.

>>It may prompt you to do stuff along the way.

>>For these FEMA personnel.

Life may not be as difficult as it is for the residents they serve, but the days are long.

Some reservists like these spend months away from home in disaster hit areas.

Ann Marie Andert came from Colorado to help in the aftermath of Ian.

>>Trying to help people.

You feel so bad everything that has happened to them.

And it was just a way I know I could reach out and kind of help the process along.

So it's nothing to me to have to leave my home to come to these areas where these people have lost so much for 6 to 8 weeks, whatever it takes to try to make the process go a little faster for them.

They have very little I mean, all their belongings are on the street.

They're just debris.

And for them to just have a smile, to see us coming in, to know we can do that little bit for them in the day to make it easier for them not to have to try to do it online is an easy thing to do.

>>The work of getting help to residents in just one part of Orange County and that effort was repeated across the state.

I sat down with FEMA spokesperson Jann Tracey to talk about the logistics behind such a large response.

>>We have a game plan.

We always know exactly - everybody knows their duty.

But in something this large, for example, we had to tap into what we refer to as our surge force.

If a disaster is large enough and we feel we might be running low on FEMA people, we have FEMA has the ability to tap into all the other government agencies and ask them it's voluntary.

They don't have to leave their job, but if they want to, they can leave their job, maybe with the IRS or the Census Bureau, whatever agency, and come and work for FEMA.

And we've done that.

>>How do you ascertain needs when you get on the ground?

What is the first thing that you do to make sure that you're getting the assistance to the places that it's needed most?

>>All disasters are local.

That's that is the most important thing people have to understand.

All disasters are local.

They're at the municipal and at the county level.

>>You have to work closely with the state and local governments.

>>FEMA does.

Yes.

Absolutely.

They escort us around.

They show us that the areas that are hardest hit now in this situation, generally speaking, we would have those county officials going out and showing us exact locations where there's damage.

But in this situation, it wasn't even necessary.

The disaster was so big that you could take an aerial view and you could see this county is going to be designated for assistance.

There's no question about it.

When you see homes leveled, homes totally underwater.

You don't need somebody to go out and escort you around from the county.

You can tell.

So in this situation, we were pretty sure dead on right away that certain counties were going to be a disaster, considered a disaster declaration, declared county where assistance would be available.

Generally speaking, it's the county that escorts us and lets us know.

>>So on the FEMA assistance, I mean, what can people expect say they suffer devastating losses and some places in our community did suffer significant losses due to the water.

What can people expect to get from that help?

Can they expect their house to be replaced?

>>No, no.

And they shouldn't expect it.

What FEMA's goal is, is to bring a home back to safe and sanitary condition.

A livable condition.

That's all we do.

If, for example, you had a an area in your home that was a recreation center with a big screen TV and a pool table or something.

FEMA's not going to replace that.

FEMA, if you have five bedrooms in your home, but only one is being utilized.

Only one bedroom is essential.

So then FEMA's going to reimburse for the damage to one bedroom.

>>The FEMA director has been in Florida.

She's been with the governor a lot.

Is the agency is that an indication that the agency is going to be in the state here for the long haul?

We've seen after Katrina for example, FEMA becomes almost part of the fabric of these communities.

>>That's right.

>>Is that what you're anticipating?

>>Absolutely.

There's no question about it.

We'll be here for a long time.

I don't mean just months.

It'll be here for we'll be here for a long time in some capacity.

Certainly, it'll shrink as time goes on and it continues to shrink.

But but recovery is not fast.

It just it goes on for a very, very long time.

And no, we're not leaving.

>>FEMA's Jann Tracey.

Well, while federal officials hit the ground in the days after the storm, much of the immediate response fell to local officials.

We wanted to hear more of their story, particularly in the hardest hit communities in our region, such as Osceola and Seminole County.

For weeks after the storm, floodwaters sat stagnant with nowhere to go.

A swollen St. John's River already full to the brim.

I sat down with the man charged with leading Seminole County's response, Alan Harris.

Harris knows a thing or two about hurricanes.

His first night on the job as Seminole County's emergency manager was August 13th, 2004, the day Hurricane Charley hit Florida.

>>Yes, as long as we are in the cone of uncertainty, we consider a direct strike as the only viable option for preparedness.

So we look at what would the worst case scenario be?

So we look at all the model runs.

We look at how fast it's moving to us, how what the projected strength of the storm would be once it gets here.

And then we make determinations based on that.

And there's a lot of modeling that goes with that, too.

We know about how many people to evacuate based on the different categories and approximate how long it would take individuals to evacuate from their home, including those that have transportation dependencies.

From that, then we can make decisions on when do we need to start preparedness?

When do we need to open up shelters?

When do we need to start transportation services to get people to the shelters?

And about how long do we have to make sure that all of our critical infrastructure are protected before the storm gets here?

>>Hurricanes are easier than some natural disasters in that you can see them coming, theyre trickier in that they're all different.

How do you prepare when each storm Irma, Charley, Frances and now Ian are all such different events?

>>You know, at the very beginning, during the press conferences, I said, please do not judge this storm based on your knowledge of the previous storm.

This storm is going to be different, and that was its historic.

The storm break breaks every flood record that we had in the previous storms.

The last storm that did break historical records is back was 2008, and that was Tropical Storm Fay, where we had record flooding along the St. John's River.

Now, that record has been exceeded with Hurricane Ian.

So it's really getting people out of the mindset in Florida.

We're pretty used to hurricanes, most people at least, that have lived in Florida for a while.

So we had to get those individuals to reevaluate what they thought because they may be considering everything based on their last storm.

And then for all the new people that have moved into Florida, trying to educate them on what to expect.

>>What's your first instinct as an emergency manager?

What do you want to do?

Do you want to get out there and help people yourself?

What did you think when you sort of saw the scale of that houses underwater in inland Florida?

>>So I have a fire background.

So certainly I want to be in the field and helping people.

But I also understand my role and my role in emergency management is to coordinate.

So give the first responders, give the individuals that are out there the tools that they need to accomplish the mission, whether that's bringing in National Guard, which we did, whether it's ordering hundreds of thousands of sandbags, which we did, whether that's bringing in dams to go around critical infrastructures, which we also did, whether it's getting commodities, food, water, tarps, those types of things to individuals in flood prone areas, which we also did, and making sure that our shelters were equipped and ready to go, that they had ample supplies.

There were people there, for persons with disabilities, for individuals that had pets, all the different types of services that need to be there, as well as crisis mental health.

>>You've got a house, you've probably got a family.

What went through your mind when you saw that storm and it looked like it was probably going to come here?

Do you think, “Oh boy.

” Or are you just very focused on your job at that point?

Do you have two things going on in your mind?

>>The hardest thing for everybody in this center during a hurricane is they're 100% focused here.

But they have to be 100% focused also in their brain somewhere else.

And that is at home.

So in the back of my mind, I'm constantly while I'm responding to the incident, I may be texting, I may be calling.

In fact, I pulled up on my phone a couple of times, Ring, my camera phone at my house just to see if everything was working okay at the house, just to make sure we had power.

At one point, I lost everything, so I knew no power or internet.

We had lost something.

So I called real quick to check and make sure everybody was okay.

Everybody was okay.

But that's something that every person in the center is wrestling with while they're focused on responding to the community to doing the right thing.

Their hearts, of course, are with them, but their hearts are also with their families back at home.

>>Alan Harris, Seminole County's emergency manager.

In a moment, the financial cost of Floridians dealing with record rise.

Next tonight, Hurricane Ian was a costly reminder to many Floridians that homeowners or renters insurance policies seldom, if ever, cover the effects of flooding.

A lot depends on where you live.

Private flood insurance might be an option, but if you want coverage, chances are you'll end up with federal flood insurance.

Well, Florida's property insurance market was already teetering on the edge of collapse, and Hurricane Ian is likely to cause financial ruin for insurers and customers alike.

Lawmakers are set to debate the insurance market in a special session.

I spoke with outgoing state senator Jeff Brandes, who spearheaded efforts during a special session earlier this year on the same issue.

>>It was really just too little, too late.

The things that really needed to be done, while they were meaningful, what occurred during special session.

It was not nearly enough for what the market needed.

This is a market that was headed towards an iceberg, and you had to turn a lot harder to it than than what we turned to miss - miss hitting it.

>>So we've had Hurricane Ian.

What happens now in your mind, to the market?

>>Well, I think specifically to the reinsurance market.

So insurance companies buy insurance.

That's that's called reinsurance.

And that's largely through London.

And Bermuda are the major places that sell reinsurance.

And I think the reinsurance market is going potentially going to hardened significantly.

It was already hardening significantly.

I think this is this is only a case in point for it to get even more difficult to place reinsurance and recognizing that of almost every carrier in Florida has a significant reliance upon reinsurance in order to do business in the state.

>>And what's that going to mean for customers in there?

>>Well, I think customers I think I think left unchecked, if Florida did nothing over the next six months.

I think you would see rates go up between 20 and 40%.

And even if they do something, I think you're going to see some substantial rate increases.

>>What do you think the governor and the legislature should do now?

>>They need to address four substantial issues.

First, they need to get rid of one way attorneys fees in Florida.

Most states do not offer a one way attorney's fees statute like Florida has.

And so we need to get rid of one way attorneys fees.

Two, we need to end the assignment of benefits just like Texas and North Carolina have done.

Assignment of benefits is essentially the process by which somebody comes in knocking on your door, says, ”We'll take care of this with your insurance company and we'll fix your new your roof.

” And you sign a piece of paper.

Then they essentially control the benefits of that policy.

And if there's any litigation that ensues or anything, any other delays, you won't get a new roof until they have resolved and have a payment to your insurance carrier.

So end the assignment of benefits process.

Three, we need to move and allow for actual cash value or stated value on roofs.

If you get into an accident today in your 2010 Toyota Corolla and your insurance car insurance company has to buy you a new your car insurance company will not buy you a new car.

What they're going to do is give you the cash value for that 200 - 2010 Toyota Corolla, unlike property insurance.

Whereas if you have a 20 year old roof on your house and you have a hailstorm that comes through and there's damage to that roof, your property insurer has to buy you a brand new $30,000 roof, even though it was ready, maybe months away from getting replaced on your own.

They're now having to buy you a brand new roof.

And so that leads to a number of cases of insurance fraud that we've seen in the state.

And so about 70% of the litigation pre-Ian was roof based litigation.

Consumers are facing more and more risk.

They're facing fewer and fewer options and they're fuzing seeing higher and higher prices.

If the legislature fails to address this issue this year, we're looking at gutting the middle class of the state of Florida because people simply cannot afford to live in these homes anymore.

>>Jeff Brandes there.

Well, to talk about the politics of reforming the insurance market, I turn to a regular on NewsNight, WFTV Channel 9s Christopher Heath has been covering the insurance market in depth for many years.

And I started by asking him whether the legislative session earlier this year made any difference this time around.

>>I mean, a little bit as far as the money that was pumped into the reinsurance and as far as also kind of sending a message to the various insurance companies out there.

The biggest problem Florida has right now is the fact that all of the big insurers are no longer in the state.

They're not writing new policies or they're completely out of the state.

State Farm is the largest of the big insurers that are still in Florida, and they're only about 8% of the policies.

That means a lot of small insurers with less liquidity are in Florida, and those are your options.

Meanwhile, Citizens just keeps growing.

They passed a million policies back in August and it's just keeps going.

They could be a million and a half by the end of the year.

And there's some estimates that next year we're going to 2 million.

That's not good for Florida, that's a lot of exposure.

>>And of course, they were supposed to be the insurer of last resort.

And in many cases, the last resort is simply not what the legislature initially anticipated it was going to be.

>>Well, it's almost become to the point where Citizens is now the big dog, because they they can they their prices are not set on actuarial tables.

Their prices are set by politicians in Tallahassee who have a vested interest in getting reelected.

So they are coming in.

They're able to offer policies much lower, and they're basically distorting this market.

And I've heard this Republicans and from Democrats that either we need to figure out what to do with Citizens insofar as is it going to be a competitor or is it going to actually be the one of last resort?

Because as long as it's in this space, it's distorting the market.

And if you're an insurer in Florida writing policies and you're competing against Citizens, not only are they not having to answer to the same people you have to answer to, they're also backstopped by all of us.

All taxpayers and ratepayers in the state of Florida are in some way, shape or form responsible for Citizens, and that creates a lot of problems downstream.

If Citizens gets up to a million and a half or 2 million policies and then we have another Charley or we have another Irma that causes significant damage, we could be in a much worse situation.

The fact of the matter is, I did not talk to a single member of the legislature back in May at the special session who didn't tell me in some way, shape or form, “We just need to pray not to have a hurricane.

” We have one.

Now we're going to have to wait and see exactly what this does.

But, you know, all indications are it's not going to be good.

>>How much do fraud and litigation play into this?

That's what we hear a lot that we make up 80% of the sort of the litigation when it comes to insurance claims in the nation.

How much of that weighs into this?

>>It's very complicated.

It's certainly a big part of it.

The litigation is enormous.

Fraud is definitely out there.

We have the tools to stamp out fraud to go find it and get rid of it.

Those need to be used.

You hear a lot of talk about assignment of benefits, which is basically you hand over your benefits to somebody who takes care of it for you, basically write the policy over to them.

There are some reforms that can be done there.

The issue when you get into litigation and this is what you're going to hear from people who are pro-consumer, they're going to say the more you cut down on litigation at some point, are you taking away power from the homeowner to have any leverage over their insurance company for legitimate claims?

Something really goes wrong with your roof or your home and your insurance company denies you, what is your avenue of recourse, if not litigation?

Now, definitely there is a fine line to walk there, but at the end of the day, somebody's ox is going to get gored out of all of this.

It's either going to be the homeowners that are going have a harder time suing the insurance companies or the insurance companies are continue finding themselves in court.

Again, if this problem was easy, they would have solved it by now.

>>When we come back, the inequities in the response to natural disasters such as Hurricane Ian and the systemic infrastructure issues that face underserved communities.

Next tonight, when Vice President Kamala Harris said after Hurricane Ian that resources should be distributed based on equity, It sparked criticism from Senator Rick Scott and others who said that the vice president was suggesting that aid should be distributed based on the color of skin, not need.

The White House pushed back and said she was just talking about non-emergency funding for natural disasters in general, not specifically about Hurricane Ian, but congressional Republicans now say they will change the rules that force FEMA to take equity into account in natural disaster response.

Well, to talk more about this subject, I turned to Chauncia Willis, the former emergency management coordinator for the city of Tampa.

She's now the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management.

>>That's a great question.

Why are marginalized communities disproportionately impacted?

Quite honestly, it's because of the system that we have in place in our country, and we see a lot of these same issues all around the world.

Unfortunately, our country has created a construct that pits the wealthy, more affluent individuals and families in a position where they're able to prepare more adequately and have more access to resources before a disaster.

And for those that do not have adequate resources and those that do not have the socioeconomic status of others, they essentially don't do well in disasters and they face disproportionate impact.

>>What about those agencies that distribute aid?

Do we see systemic issues in organizations like FEMA, for example, that might contribute to this issue?

>>Well, you know, FEMA has done a great job in terms of really focusing on equity.

However, the reason they're focusing on equity is because there are so many pervasive, inequitable policies that are systemic, that have negatively impacted communities of color and marginalized communities throughout our country.

And those policies include everything from individual assistance after disaster, public assistance even before a disaster.

Just the amount of funding that goes into lower income communities is almost negligible.

And so the infrastructure support, the mitigation in lower income communities is not there.

And so after a disaster, when a disaster strikes, they are not in a position to adequately be able to respond to a disaster such as major flooding, because they just don't have the infrastructure.

There's been a lack of investment.

So we saw that with Jackson, Mississippi, as well.

>>How much of this do you think comes down to simple realities like homeownership, disparities in home values that affect the amount of assistance that communities of color can receive?

I mean, I've read data that show homeowners disproportionately benefit from FEMA assistance.

Communities of color, of course, have very high rates of renting.

>>Mm hmm.

>>How much does that affect just the basic realities of the market in individual neighborhoods?

>>It it affects it tremendously.

I mean, redlining and other inequitable practices that have prevented homeowners of color from actually being able to purchase properties in safer, less vulnerable areas, really attributes to the disproportionate impact that we see after a disaster.

So when we're looking at these disasters and we're seeing where white communities are recovering much more quickly, and we go to say, for example, the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, and it still hasn't recovered.

We know that a lot of that can be attributed to inequities, the disproportionate systems that the systems that essentially are inequitable in our country.

And so it's unfortunate, but absolutely true.

>>Why do we see neighborhoods with large African-American populations flooding so much worse?

For example, do you see infrastructure as being a problem as part of that puzzle?

>>Mm hmm.

Infrastructure is a huge problem.

Many African-American neighborhoods and communities of color, because, honestly, I've seen tribal communities, Latino communities, African-American communities in general, those communities who might be considered marginalized and are marginalized or disenfranchized from government do not receive the same level of infrastructure investment.

So programs like the BRIC program, a mitigation program from FEMA, those programs are intended to provide funding and I mean funding in the millions and billions of dollars to communities to ensure that their infrastructure is adequate.

When those grants are being formulated and prepared, many times communities of color are excluded, not even brought to the meeting table to decide if they have projects that could be funded.

They're absolutely excluded.

And so what happens is they are not funded for mitigation in infrastructure.

And so their infrastructure becomes worse and worse over time.

There is no improvement other than bare minimum.

And what you see is an entire community facing repetitive flooding, dealing with disaster after disaster, having compounded disasters and the mental trauma that goes along with that is significant.

The financial impacts of having to recover or try to recover because you never really recover.

Youre just kind of bouncing.

>>Why is that the case?

Is this to do with leadership?

I mean, in Orange County, for example, we've seen the mayors say, well, it's very difficult, it's very complex to apportion blame.

But is it complex?

Is it just down to leadership?

Is it down to priorities?

Why is the infrastructure so neglected in communities like that?

>>It's it's it is rather for me, it's not very complex.

But I could understand how it could be complex for a mayor or someone having to choose where to allocate funding.

Our priority, of course, is equity.

So we want to ensure that everyone has equal access to that funding at a bare minimum.

Right now, everyone doesn't have equal access to funding.

Certain communities that are well connected to government receive more funding than others.

And so in addition to that, it's a mindset our country has for all intents and purposes, deemed that people of color have less value.

So does their property, so does their community.

And their lives have less value.

And so if we could get past that mindset and say, well, everyone has value and everyone is valued the same, then we would see that our planning changes.

We wouldn't ignore entire communities.

I mean, here for Hurricane Ian, our organization was the only organization to begin our response with the most vulnerable and underserved communities.

We went to the migrant farmers first.

We went to do outreach in non-English speaking communities first.

We prioritize those who are most underserved, those who are most vulnerable first.

And then in doing so, we ensure that everyone is going to be able to recover or at least have a chance to survive and get back on the right road.

>>The Vice President Vice President Harris, said that the federal government should take into account issues of equity and inequality in disaster response in general.

She wasn't specifically talking about Hurricane Ian, but she was talking about things that agencies like FEMA have to deal with on a regular basis.

I mean, what do you make of that debate?

>>The data demonstrates over and over again that socioeconomic status determines how you will recover.

So if you don't take it into account, you're leaving people behind.

And it is grossly inequitable and truly because it keeps happening so frequently in our country.

It's really an indictment against our leaders who fail to prioritize those who are most vulnerable.

We absolutely should be doing what the vice president has recommended, which is to prioritize equity.

We need more disaster equity, especially in the face of climate change.

>>Well, I was going to ask you about Florida as a specific example of this issue.

Would you agree it's almost like a perfect storm, if you like, because Florida communities, Tampa, for example, Orlando, large minority communities, large numbers of underserved people.

Also, as we now know from Hurricane Ian, very vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters.

Does that make this issue all the more pressing in Florida in particular and in other places in the South?

>>I think Florida is is like the perfect example of the haves and the have nots and how that impacts a person's ability to recover.

We looked at Sanibel Island down there in Lee County, that Fort Myers Naples area and all we saw on the news every night was what the yachts crashing into one another on the beach.

We saw the yachts and we saw the big boats.

And you never heard about the people who didn't have access to a house and didn't have access to food before the storm.

And Florida has all of those communities, in some cases, living within five miles of one another.

So at the same time that you're seeing these houses that are huge and coastal and they chose not to evacuate.

At the same time, we go out to communities that are nearby where they were living in trailers and they didn't have access to to the Internet.

They weren't receiving warnings, and so they couldn't evacuate.

So you have a choice to evacuate and you say, no, I'll stay because I want to make sure my home is okay.

But then you have a group of people over here who had no choice and they didn't even receive initial response first.

They were the last to receive that initial response, and they're going to be the last, unfortunately, to recover unless we do something about it and change the way we think about these underserved communities in times of disaster.

>>Chauncia Willis there speaking to me in Tampa.

Of course, Florida is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.

And some groups like Florida Rising fear that Hurricane Ian may make matters even worse.

>>The big question is where, you know, those individuals that decided not to rebuild in Fort Myers that have been displaced, displaced if they have an apartment or they just are fed up because they moved near the water and they no longer want that, you know, that that property, where are they going to go?

Housing market has changed, right?

Or it is changing.

The supply and demand is a big issue.

The affordability is a big issue.

And, you know, right now people can't afford rent.

They can't afford the purchase of a home.

Once upon a time, if your rent was high, you can go to purchase a home and your mortgage was cheaper.

But now they run neck and neck with one another and both of them are unaffordable.

>>Well, we discussed this very issue on a recent episode of NewsNight.

We heard Robin Lockett now just mention issues that can arise if people leave those areas inland, places where people are already struggling to afford properties.

Right.

That's got a name, right?

It's called climate gentrification.

>>Yeah.

And it's something that we've talked lot about because we see it playing out already in our state.

So essentially some properties become more valuable because of climate change.

They're at, let's say, higher ground.

So you have the lower income communities living in those more elevated areas.

They're being pushed out by people who, let's say, live along the coast.

Those areas are now less desirable because of climate change.

So you have landlords increasing rent and you have developers moving into those traditionally lower income areas that are higher ground.

So you lose the culture in that area with people just wanting to be lifted up to higher ground.

Harvard researchers named that climate gentrification back in 2018.

And it's playing out in Miami.

We're seeing people leave some of those lower lying areas for the more elevated areas like Little Haiti and Liberty City.

And those property values in those higher areas have just been going up and up and up.

>>In a moment, the environmental and sustainability issues emerging in the wake of the storm.

Finally tonight, the environmental sustainability and resiliency issues raised in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

Coastal communities, of course, are no stranger to the effects of rising water.

But Hurricane Ian brought into stark relief the challenges that face Florida's inland communities as well.

NewsNight's Krystel Knowles has been looking at the challenges in two communities in our region, one in coastal Brevard, the other here in Orange County, Krystel?

>>Basically what I was able to find out through my reporting is that no matter where you are in Florida, it can be considered a flood zone.

And Hurricane Ian made this very apparent.

Even though Central Florida and Brevard County escaped the full wrath, it brought to light just how fragile the state's flood protections really are, particularly inland.

>>This last hurricane there, there was a lot more rain.

>>Laura Betts, program manager for the Cleo Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to climate education advocacy and policy, says hurricanes are becoming stronger and bringing a lot more flooding in their wake.

>>I don't believe we were ready for this type of impact.

We were not ready for this hurricane.

There was a lot more rain, historic levels of rain.

Some say it was a 500 year type of rainfall.

>>Betts says Central Florida's flood issues after large rain events are twofold.

Developers building in flood zones and desecrating wetlands for new development.

>>You're looking at what's a new natural occurrence in this area because the wetlands have been destroyed.

>>A perfect example is this road in Horizon west, just north of Disney World.

>>This is terrible.

>>According to Betts, when she moved here about ten years ago, this road had never flooded for long periods of time.

But it did.

After Hurricane Ian, Betts says she's working with city and county officials to help draft updated building codes to meet the new climate reality.

>>They're looking at their tree ordinance and making that more stricter.

They're looking at the wetland ordinance as well, that - theyre rewriting that currently theyre rewriting their housing chapter, theyre rewriting every chapter of that comprehensive plan.

And this is when as a community, we need to be involved.

>>While inland communities are starting to look at what they can do to adapt to flooding during extreme weather events, coastal cities also have to worry about storm surge and rising sea levels.

For example, in Satellite Beach officials are working to change codes to allow future developmen This is no easy feat.

>>We've done so many stormwater improvements-- >>Since 2019, Satellite Beach City Manager Courtney Barker has been working on updating codes to allow buildings to be 45 feet high, up from the current 35 feet.

Parker says she expected it would be easy to do, but it's trickier and more involved than she thought.

>>Changing codes affects private property rights, and it's a very difficult process to go through with the community.

It affects community character.

A lot of people don't want their community to change and, you know, it's scary for people.

We just got funded by the legislature for one of our large stormwater projects.

>>She says a Category three storm can decimate a city.

And with every passing hurricane, the reality of a storm surge is becoming more apparent.

>>Really, the goal is we want to make sure that when we get a disaster like that by raising the height and allowing water, the storm surge to go under the buildings that we're able to save, you know, property, we're able to save most of our structures, build them in a better way and more resilient way so that we can withstand some of these storms, but also to affect water quality as well.

>>According to the most recent sea level rise projections from NOAA, in the next 30 years, Floridians can expect to see sea levels rising about 10 to 12 inches.

Even in the absence of storms.

So places that were previously not considered flood zones will be at risk, and places in the lowest lying areas are more likely to experience extreme flooding.

>>Really fascinating reporting there Krystel, I'm just wondering what scientists told you as part of your reporting about the effects of climate change on the strength of storms like Hurricane Ian and how coastal engineers take that into account in their plans for mitigation?

>>Yeah, I spoke to a researcher that studies climate change and he says that Hurricane Ian dumped 10% more rain because of climate change.

Ian was a a very interesting storm from the climate change perspective, because there are certain things that we expect to happen in a warmer atmosphere to those extreme hurricane.

Which includes to see more rapid intensification as the oceans warm because the atmosphere warms and eventually the ocean warms and that provides fuel for those hurricanes.

So rapid intensification is one of the things that we will likely see more often to happen.

And we did already see that also in past hurricanes.

In Ians case, it was pretty well forecasted that the storm would intensify pretty fast after it crossed over Cuba.

And that happened.

It's usually a nightmare for emergency responders because you have a forecast category one and then suddenly it turns into a Category three or four very quickly.

The other thing that Ian had was it moved very, very slowly.

And this slowed down slow down in what we call the translation speed is also something we expect to happen in a warmer atmosphere because the winds, the tropical winds that steer those hurricane systems are weakening as the atmosphere warms.

And that means it's more likely to see slow moving systems.

So right now is high tide flooding season in Miami because the sea level is particularly high, the tides are particularly high.

I don't think Florida is going to disappear over the next hundred years.

We will see more sea level rise.

If you imagine the higher sea level, two or three feet higher sea level, and then a hurricane on top of that will cause even more damage than what we just saw from Hurricane Ian.

So the challenge that we face is to adapt to those changes in the climate and changes in those extreme events which are becoming more likely and more impactful.

So that requires, number one, trying to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible because that will make sea level rise more manageable.

Sea levels continue to rise no matter what we do.

If we stop emissions tomorrow.

Sea level will still continue to rise, but at a much slower pace, which gives us a lot more time to adapt to those changes.

If we continue to emit greenhouse gases, as we do now, we will see sea level to rise much faster, giving us much less time to prepare for the impacts.

So the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is crucial to mitigate the extreme impacts in the future.

The other part that's very important is to adapt.

Like I said, some of those changes will happen no matter what we decide to do.

And we have different adaptation strategies at our disposal to prevent extreme flooding events like the ones that we just saw from Ian.

And that can include hard infrastructure such as seawalls and levees, but of course, it can also include nature based solutions, such as re-engineering wetlands, nourishing beaches, engineering dunes.

>>So what do you see in Florida?

>>I think people along the Florida coastline have by now recognized that something is changing and that something is putting their properties at risk.

And in terms of the reactiveness, that is a big problem.

We usually act after disasters although we know that those disasters can happen and the challenges and and the questions that people ask me now is how should Florida respond to it and what should we do?

And I think one of the things we shouldn't do is just rebuild everything the same way it was because we know it's not very resilient.

There are different ways, I think, to ensure that whatever we rebuild is more resilient in the future.

But that requires, for example, very strictly enforcing codes, make sure that buildings are built according to the strictest FEMA codes out there.

It also means to maybe not put critical infrastructure like hospitals and other lifelines in the most risky areas, but rather have them in places where we know they are less likely to be impacted.

And I think it also means opening the discussion about what we call a managed retreat, where we just accept the fact that sea level is going to rise.

Storm surges and extreme water level events are becoming more frequent, and maybe some places are not worth being protected indefinitely.

So preparing and that's a very challenging thing to do.

You can't just tell people, take all your stuff and move.

There needs to be a very well-planned transition phase.

But I believe what I've seen in the last couple of years, when I would go to meetings and someone would bring up at that time the dirty work of managed retreat, there would be a big uproar.

Now we actually have meetings, conferences that involve federal and state agencies where this is actually being discussed and seen as one of the adaptation options at our portfolio.

Moving people out of harm's way.

And that's challenging, but I think it needs to be done.

>>Thomas Wahl there from UCF.

We wanted to finish tonight with a conversation with a journalist who's been covering Hurricane Ian since before the storm hit.

Dinah Voyles Pulver is a national environmental reporter for USA Today.

She's based in Daytona Beach.

I wanted to ask her about the sustainability issues surrounding Hurricane Ian, but I started by asking her about her writing on Storm Prediction and how the models played out this time around.

>>The models all come from different places and different directions, and so they have biases that they, you know, they may pull this way or pull that way.

Some models, you know, that the European model, I believe it was, always showed the storm coming over Florida while other models kept pulling it west and that the track for the Hurricane Center, the first track was right on the money for where it eventually made landfall.

Other tracks veered to the north, veered a little bit almost, you know, almost into the panhandle of Florida.

And eventually they all pulled back.

So.

And the entire time that forecast cone, which is the forecast cone, just shows the two thirds probability of where a storm might make landfall.

And parts of Lee County, where the storm eventually made landfall were always in the cone.

They were never out of the cone.

So were there mistakes?

I don't feel like they were mistakes.

I feel like the models aren't certain.

The models are just predictions.

So the storm just ended up going on the very edge of the forecast cone.

But that's always a possibility.

>>Of course, that uncertainty that we talked about, according to Lee County officials, was responsible for their decision on holding off evacuating for that one critical day.

How important are these predictions when it comes to the actions that emergency managers and law enforcement authorities take in the lead up to an event like this?

>>Well, I think they're critically important.

You know, if you are if you are in that cone, regardless of whether you're in the middle of the counter to the side of the cone, it would seem from from everything I've learned that it is the responsibility of the emergency managers to go, hey, we're in that cone.

We're not taking any chances.

But evacuations are hard.

They're very difficult and political to some degree.

People don't.

There they are.

They're afraid to order those evacuations because of the expense.

>>And you wrote a piece about why so many people in vulnerable parts of Florida that were predicted to be hit hard by the storm did not evacuate.

What's going on there?

you know, it's one of those things that we've seen a lot over the years in Florida.

If you if you're predicted to get a storm and the impacts aren't that bad the next time, people are like, yeah, well, you know, it wasn't that bad before.

And they only got a glancing blow.

Maybe they weren't here at a, you know, at a time when there was a really bad storm.

And they're sitting there at home, they're making all these decisions under pressure.

You know, do I have the money to evacuate?

Last time I evacuated, my home wasn't even touched.

Should I stay or should I go?

And they think that they have time.

You know, this the one of the ladies that I spoke to thought she had plenty of time to get out, but her neighbor's house ended up in her driveway before the water came up.

So with those first bursts of winds, her way out was blocked and she was stuck.

And she says now it was the worst mistake she ever made.

But clearly, a lot of the elderly people either didn't have a way or didn't want to leave their homes.

For for a lot of people, home means safety.

And they don't want to leave because they know they're safe there.

They don't know what they're going to find in a shelter.

>>Dinah, you wrote of the flooding here in central Florida.

“Researchers who study flooding developments and climate change were horrified by the emerging images, but not surprised.

” And many residents certainly seemed to be surprised if officials were not surprised by what they saw.

Should more have been done to mitigate the impacts ahead of time?

We've heard complaints from residents in some parts of the state saying, look, we experience flooding quite regularly.

>>You know, city officials, local officials should know, they should understand ahead of time that there was going to be that kind of rain.

Part of the issue, though, with the long term development of Florida is all the new development is only required to handle like a 25 year rain.

So if you're built to hold the you know, you see the retention ponds.

We all know retention ponds, they're built to handle like in some cases a 25 year, maybe a 50 year rainfall.

If you get a thousand year rainfall or a 500 year rainfall, which this depending on where you are, I think you can - Ian pretty much ranges somewhere between the 500 year rain and a thousand year rain.

So that's an incredible amount of rain.

And if you look at canals like the icon there are places on the econ where the whenever there's a bad storm, any time it might, the level in the water might jump five or six feet in a couple of hours.

All that storm water that's designed to run into storm water systems flows into these creeks and canals and sends the level much higher.

>>I mean, how much comes down to the planning process development and urban sprawl?

And how does those factor into this?

I mean, in 2011, I believe Florida abolished the state agency that managed risky development.

How much of this has got to do with where these places are?

>>Oh, it has everything to do with it.

I mean, if you look at the pattern of development over last 50 years in Florida, of the last 60 years in Florida, how many times have people paved over wetlands?

So what happens to that water the next time when now sitting there percolating down into the ground and that that's been the case for years in Florida, they decided that a retention problem would hold a 25 year rain.

Well, meanwhile now, as climate warming takes effect and the air is warmer, the water's warmer.

All these storms, even a regular Sunday afternoon thunderstorm, is holding more water than it did before.

So a rain that used to be what they would call a one in 100 year rain is actually coming much more often than it used to when Florida's planning rules were put into place.

But, you know, is it fair to ask a developer to hold 100 or 500 year rain?

It would.

That would drive.

I'm told it would drive the cost of development through the roof.

And, you know, ultimately, the average person who buys there, rents there may bear that burden.

So I'm not sure what the answer is, but it certainly there have been all these construction and all of this development that has rechanneled the water.

That's, you know, the Daytona Canal system was built for not not to hold storm water in the third in like the thirties, early thirties, forties.

Instead, over the years, all that development in Daytona, much of it is the stormwater has been channel to that canal system.

So it's now doing duty for far more square miles than it was intended for.

And the same can be said for canals all over central Florida.

>>I mean, the governor has pushed resiliency and stormwater infrastructure investment, especially in coastal communities, but not exclusively.

And I wonder if you think an event like Hurricane Ian will sort of prompt a reevaluation as to where those kinds of resources need to go or maybe even a further prioritization of that spending?

>>That's a good question, and I don't know the answer because we have so many different crises happening at the same time.

The coast needs resources because sea level rise is happening already, causing erosion everywhere these inland areas that have now been flooded.

It certainly seems that there will have to be some serious questions about where we put money toward improving existing areas of flood.

How do we plan how do we plan for the future if we're going to have rainfall more often?

What kind of rule changes do we need to make?

You know, after Hurricane Andrew?

They changed a lot of the building codes to make homes stronger.

We see how successful that is, but there haven't been a lot of improvements or changes to the rainfall regulations about stormwater.

And we know that we're getting more and more rainfall.

So hopefully someone will look at that and go, hey, there are some serious lessons we need to learn.

>>Well, it's a complicated issue for sure, and I'm sure you'll keep across it all the way.

But Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national reporter who covers the environment for USA Today.

Thank you so much for coming in.

>>Thank you.

It's good to be here.

>>Well, that is all we have for this special edition of NewsNight.

We will return next Friday at 8:30 p.m. with our regular look at the week's news.

Until then, take care and have a great week.