The Opinions - We Need a ‘Managed Retreat’ In Florida

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Florida’s two major hurricanes in the past month highlight how decades of deregulation and overdevelopment under Republican leadership have made the state increasingly vulnerable to climate change. After more than 30 years of living through Florida hurricanes, the writer Jeff VanderMeer believes a “managed retreat” is a necessary response to the growing frequency and intensity of storms.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. My name is Jeff Van Amir, and I'm a novelist who's lived in Florida for over 30 years. Florida figures prominently in my books. You could say that they couldn't exist without it to some degree. My relationship with the state, I would say, is very intimate with regard to its wild places and very complicated in general, given many of the contradictions. that occur in Florida.

Hurricane Milton exploding into a once-in-a-lifetime storm, less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the state. Florida has been hit with two hurricanes in the last month, and the frequency and the strength and the swiftness of them has kind of made a lot of things more difficult here than even normal during hurricane season. A glimpse into the real cost of hurricane season. Hurricane Milton along the Gulf Coast.

Yeah, this price tag so far, well over $100 billion in damage. You know, many people are still without power. The fact that Helene reached so far inland and had such devastating effects kind of tells you that things are getting worse. There is a definite grief in all of this. You know, because of the damage, because of the fact that some part of it feels arbitrary, but also unnecessary, that, you know, policy could have been better,

that in part what we're also seeing is the effect of bad development also is we're losing a lot of what makes Florida special, and we're losing a certain amount of security and safety at the same time. And it's almost intolerable because it's so avoidable. Water lives in Florida everywhere, and flooding from hurricanes comes inland in ways you, wouldn't expect. We have a aquifer underlying the state that if you think about basically Florida kind of floating on water, that's really kind of what it's like. It's porous all the way through. And so deregulation in the last 15 to 20 years and bad policy means that you have a lot of flooding everywhere during a major storm if it hits an area, not just.

on the coast because we're building in floodplains, basically, and they go bad worse than before because these storms are so powerful. Under Governor Rick Scott, there was this extremely clinical and targeted decision to give developers what they wanted. And part of that was literally doing away with the agency that oversaw smart growth across the state. And once that agency was gone, it was kind of a free-for-all. And that's kind of trickled down to the counties, where there's been a free-for-all also, where developers have worked really hard to influence policy county by county to undo smart building regulation and zoning at those levels. What DeSantis and other Republican governors have brought is a combination of very cynical deregulation to, and so that you know,

to allow big developers to do whatever they want. And part of what they do is they bring sometimes cookie cutter solutions, which is to say they may actually have a decent housing plan that works in some other state, but they implement it exactly the same in Florida where it can't work for various reasons, including the way the water flows. So you can see the effects of building all along the coast

with no rhyme or reason in terms of the devastation of these storms. So with the storms becoming swifter and with the policies on where we build and how we build, having been kind of like stripped of any meaning in the modern era to some degree except for profit, you have a situation where no number of improvements to evacuation orders is going to help the basic situation, which is that we do need a managed retreat. And we do need to start thinking about that there are areas that we can't and shouldn't build it. One problem we have, for example, is that in a lot of places, we've completely gotten rid of the natural barriers or buffer zones at the coast, whether it's mangroves or marsh reed areas. And you can see the

effects. So we need to rebuild smarter, and that means really thinking about where we rebuild. And we need to think about using the natural resources that we have rather than destroying. them. I think what people outside of Florida need to realize is that there are a lot of amazing people and places in this state. And I really hate seeing people during hurricanes or during political periods of chaos here, write us off, or think that there's nothing here worth saving, so to speak. It's kind of like the undercurrent in some of the commentary that I see. you know, I know people who told me after this last hurricane, Jeff, that's it. I haven't told anyone yet, but I'm planning on leaving the state.

But this is an amazing place. It's potentially a place that people can live in a sustainable and great way. But it requires forethought, changes to policy, and not pandering to ideologies that are not based in the reality of climate crisis and where the world is going. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vichaka, Fibuilett, Christina Samuoski, and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Sabro,

and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samuiluski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Dresser.