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When Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa, Florida on September 28, 2022, it brought storm, sea, and devastation. The areas most severely affected by Ian’s wrath were unsurprisingly the areas inherently most vulnerable to landfalling hurricanes: those at low elevations and directly adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. With climate change exacerbating the risk these unprotected communities face from future storms, federal policymakers should consider shifting the government’s strategy from rebuilding to compassionate relocation.
Bringing Category 4 sustained winds up to 150 miles per hour and more than 12 feet of storm surge, Ian inundated communities along the southwestern Florida Gulf Coast. In Lee County, at least 45 people lost their lives as up to 18 feet of storm surge swept houses from their foundations in the beachfront communities of Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach.
Quite understandably, most recovery efforts in the aftermath of Ian have focused on rebuilding the coastal communities demolished by the hurricane. For example, Fort Myers Beach residents have vowed to reconstruct their restaurants, homes, and hotels devastated in the storm surge. Rebuilding the most hard-hit areas will be a massive project—as President Biden put it while surveying the damage in Fort Myers Beach: “You got to start from scratch.” To that end, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has allocated $420 million in assistance to those affected by the hurricane, a figure that includes low-interest disaster loans to homeowners and business owners, temporary housing costs for those left without shelter, and free home inspections.
The immense human and financial costs of Hurricane Ian cannot be minimized, and it is eminently understandable that the first instinct of impacted residents and politicians alike is to rebuild. What complicates these plans is the sheer vulnerability of these communities to future hurricanes of comparable intensity and destruction. Hurricane Ian was the sixth Category 4 or 5 hurricane to strike the Gulf Coast in the past six...