Ft. Myers feels the brunt of Ian
While Babcock Ranch represents what good design can offer, other areas hit by the hurricane suffered devastating losses. Months after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Cayo Costa, Florida, on September 28, 2022, a ride along the Ft. Myers beachfront still feels like a scene from an Armageddon-themed Hollywood movie. As of June 2023, only 25 percent of restaurants are open and vacation rentals are still difficult to find.3 Debris is still piled on roadsides. The divide between older and newer construction is evident. Many newer buildings are still standing and being repaired. Newer roofs remained intact, which is a departure from earlier storms where roofs commonly blew off, resulting in devastation to the interiors. Impact-resistant windows withstood flying debris. Reinforced garage doors braved the wind. The FBC proved its value after Ian and other recent natural disasters such as Hurricane Irma (2017) and Hurricane Michael (2018).
For buildings constructed to the code, structural damage was nearly eliminated, underscoring a significant success story for the wind science and engineering community. While damage from Ian was estimated to be between $47 and $70 billion, according to disaster analytics firm Core Logic,4 it could have been worse if Florida had not begun the long road toward tougher building codes following Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Better building practices, improved construction products, and vigorous testing protocols for materials saved many buildings constructed after the new codes began to take full effect in the early 2000s.
However, there is much to improve, especially when considering the staggering loss of properties and people. Older, wood-framed buildings were sometimes demolished, and giant piles of debris stand like ghostly tributes to former beach restaurants, churches, and shops. Not only did Ian cause immense structural damage, but more than 5,000 homes and 300 businesses in Lee County
alone were damaged or destroyed.5
What went wrong?
Hurricane Ian was the confluence of several unfortunate factors. There was a very high tide when the storm hit two densely populated centers, Sanibel and Ft. Myers. The high tide, combined with a catastrophic storm surge, hit at the same time for maximum flooding. The storm surge caused some houses and concrete swimming pools to act as boats, as they floated off their foundations. Irma, by contrast, hit the less populated Everglades hard in terms of storm surge and rising waters from rain, causing flooding along the rivers more than the coastal locations. This is a major reason why storm surge damage from Ian was greater than the storm surge damage left behind from Irma.
Path of destruction
After plowing a path of destruction through the Caribbean, bringing heavy rainfall and dangerous surf to Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and western Cuba, Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwestern Florida as a dangerous Category 4 storm. After crossing over the Florida peninsula, it strengthened again over the water to a Category 1 hurricane and made a second landfall near Georgetown, South Carolina.6
On September 28th, Ian intensified into a Category 4 hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 249 km/h (155 mph), just shy of a Category 5 storm. Ian came ashore near Cayo Costa, Florida, at 3:05 p.m. EDT with maximum sustained winds of 241 km/h (150 mph), tying the record for the fifth-strongest hurricane on record to strike the U.S. It was the strongest hurricane to hit Florida since Michael in 2018. It was also the first Category 4 hurricane to impact southwest Florida since Charley in 2004, and it was the strongest September hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico since Irma in 2017.
