The reconstruction of Florida after the passage of Hurricane ‘Ian’ will cost 250,000 million dollars, the most expensive in US history
Sitting in the middle of the desolation of Fort Myers Beach, John Paterson told the cameras this Friday what he still couldn’t digest. “I saw my house disappear with everything inside before my eyes, literally.” He kept what he was wearing. And the lost look. The Harley-Davidson cap he wore as a visor is the only thing of value left to him. “I held on as long as I could, until I feared for my life. Then I crossed the street to take refuge in the basement of my neighbors and from there I saw her disappear.
Her voice choked, her eyes were misty with tears. At her age, starting over is not easy. It won’t be cheap. Until now, Hurricane Katrina, which in 2005 flooded New Orleans and left the Louisiana coast as flat as Fort Myers, held the record for the most expensive reconstruction after a hurricane. The 186,000 million dollars that it cost will be in Florida at least 250,000 million, estimated this Friday Jimmy Patronis, financial director of the state office of damage prevention, codes, inspections and licenses. Inflation and the shortage of construction materials are the perfect cocktail for a nightmare that has only just begun.
The Sunshine and Palms State, which charges no state taxes to its residents, has been a retiree favorite for decades. The same ones who are now on the street without even having anything to wear. “This place no longer exists, there is no reason to come,” Robert Leisure told his daughter, in front of a reporter from the newspaper ‘Sun Sentinel’ who found him “observing in astonishment the infernal destruction” in which everything had been left, still under meter and a half of water. “It’s the first time I’ve lost everything,” she said.
He had been trapped in his house since Thursday until the water receded enough to reach the street, albeit waist-deep wet. His cell phone batteries had run out a long time ago. Coming out of it, he saw that the two stairs connecting the buildings in his development had disappeared, as well as the pool shacks and even the boat. The bait and tackle shop he owned was half submerged and littered with debris, as if “a bomb had gone off inside.” Furniture, mattresses, suitcases and even photos of women embracing each other in better times floated in the street, described reporter Angie Di Michele.
‘Ian’, who has already left 21 dead in Florida, but it is feared that the final balance will be higher, continued to break records this Friday, about to make landfall for the third time. In Cuba he left the eleven million inhabitants of the island without electricity. In Florida, the suspension of electricity service, which almost two million people still suffered, is the lesser of evils, having received the direct impact of a monster that bordered on category 5. And in South Carolina, where it would arrive devalued at category 1, the sustained winds of 135 kilometers per hour could pale in comparison to those that had ripped off the rooftops of Florida. But even so, they would arrive accompanied by the floods that the torrential rains would leave, sustained for long days in a less permeable soil than that of their neighbors to the south.
IN YOUR CONTEXT
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21 people
have died in Florida from the hurricane, but the number is feared to be rising, according to the Division of Emergency Management. -
“It is a tragedy for the whole country”
These were the words of US President Joe Biden, who has already signed several executive orders to speed up the delivery of aid. -
700 are the ransoms
carried out so far by the rescue teams in the State. Most, about 200, have been practiced in the city of Fort Myers. -
Lack of food in shelters
The authorities need 5.5 million food rations and 6.5 million liters of drinking water to cover the needs of the evacuees.
Only damage and destruction have been left behind. If the meteorological phenomenon can be thanked for something, which will go down in history as the fifth most powerful that has touched the US, it is having saved the most populated cities that it had in its history. Tampa and Orlando were able to make do with flooded streets, like Charleston this Friday, by veering slightly toward the Georgetown waterfront.
beat the bureaucracy
“We are alive,” consoled those who had lost everything. “Worse are the poor people of Naples or Fort Myers,” said others. President Joe Biden, who personally spoke to every affected mayor the White House could get on the phone, disbanded through executive orders as much bureaucracy as he could to expedite aid. “This is not a Florida tragedy, this is a nationwide tragedy.”
Boats, helicopters, “whatever it takes to reach the survivors,” promised the president. The Florida emergency services had recorded 700 rescues this Friday. Only in Fort Myers, 200, explained the mayor. From a man trapped in his car with a heart attack, to entire families sheltered in basements whose doors had been barricaded by a pile of furniture and rubble. And that was just the ones who had been able to call for help. The emergency services went door to door in search of survivors, aware that without light or telephone they were the only hope.
Those who had saved their lives crowded into 250 shelters, where the authorities wondered how to care for them. The state government estimated that for this it needs 6.5 million liters of drinking water and 5.5 million food rations. With a dozen airports closed, it was not easy to get there. But the Spanish chef José Andrés and his World Food Kitchen operative were already there, setting up free dining rooms between Naples and Tampa. “We are all Florida,” President Biden insisted.
#house #disappear