>>This week on NewsNight, a look ahead at the 2023 hurricane season, which begins on June 1st with some residents in central Florida still counting the cost of Hurricanes Ian and Nicole last year.

We'll examine how affected areas are recovering and preparing for potential future storms.

Plus, a look at rebuilding efforts going on on Florida's Gulf Coast.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] >>Hello, I'm Steve Mort, and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

We start tonight with resiliency and efforts in Florida to mitigate storm damage as we head into yet another hurricane season.

Governor DeSantis signed a law in 2021 establishing the resilient Florida grant program and requiring the Department of Environmental Protection to develop an annual statewide flooding and sea level rise resilience plan.

Local municipalities, too, are taking steps in some places to reduce the threat of rising water.

We'll talk later in the program with the emergency manager for Seminole County about the work underway there and lessons learned from the 2022 hurricane season in that community.

But first, I'm joined in the studio by Amy Green.

She's a Florida based environment reporter now with InsideClimate News.

Amy Green, thank you so much for joining us.

Really appreciate your time today.

>>It's my pleasure.

>>Let me ask you about the reporting that you're currently working on.

You just recently went to Astor in Lake County, which is one of those communities that really suffered months long, relentless flooding after Hurricane Ian.

What are you seeing in communities like that now?

Where are they in terms of their recovery?

>>Well, I think what people in Astor are experiencing is very similar to what Floridians across the state are dealing with, which is that this hurricane season is starting at a time when for a lot of people it feels like the last season never really ended.

I don't know if you feel that way, but, you know, across the state, more than a thousand households remain displaced and they are in temporary housing supported by FEMA.

And, you know, in Astor, that's a community that's situated right on the Saint John's River, which there was a lot of flooding associated with the river after Hurricanes Ian and Nichole last year.

And that community really experienced kind of like a one-two punch with the hurricane season last year.

You know, just as the water was beginning to recede after Hurricane Ian, Nicole came along and dumped even more rain.

I talked with one resident there who says his house was inundated for about a month.

>>You mentioned it there that Astor is a particularly vulnerable place.

And one of the things that Ian and Nicole brought into stark relief was that inland areas of Florida are so vulnerable to flooding, much like we think of coastal areas.

And I wonder what makes Astor itself and places like it particularly vulnerable is it just its proximity to the Saint John's?

>>Well, in Astor it's because of its because of its proximity to the Saint John's.

That community is right on the Saint John's people who live there.

You know, that community is very centered around the river and people live there because they enjoy being close to the river.

And so people who I talk to don't have plans to move away because of last year's hurricane season or anything like that.

And and one man who I talked to actually is adapting his house as he's working on his repairs and doing things like raising up a backyard deck and adding sand fill to his back yard to try to prevent the water from getting inside his house.

The next time there's a storm and there's flooding.

But Florida is a low lying peninsula.

And and so, you know, again, the rainfall amounts we saw with hurricanes Ian and Nicole, and with Ian in particular were unlike anything we've seen in our state for hundreds of years, if not longer.

And so that's why we had a lot of that flooding that we experienced last year.

And we're seeing communities, you know, make big changes because of that, because we know that with climate change, hurricanes will become rainier because as the atmosphere warms, it can retain more moisture.

And so just for example, here in central Florida, in New Smyrna Beach, they agreed last year to put a temporary pause on new residential developments so that community can go back and understand some of the hurricane impacts that they experienced.

And here in Orange County, another neighborhood that was very affected was Orlo Vista over toward the west side.

And Orange County commissioners have agreed to invest in some drainage improvements there to try to improve the situation.

You talked about some of the practical steps that people in Astor are taking, and probably there's a lot of trepidation and given what they experienced last year, we don't know what we might experience this year, but what are the predictions looking like?

I mean, you're writing about that at the moment.

>>Right.

So there's good news and there's less good news with that, Steve.

And so the good news is that meteorologists are expecting below average activity this hurricane season, but they also say that there is a lot of uncertainty about this season.

And that's because there are kind of two opposing factor years developing here.

The first is the likely development of a El Nino, which can discourage hurricane activity in the Atlantic.

And an El Nino is a climate phenomenon that can affect weather events across the globe.

But scientists also say that that surface temperatures in the Atlantic have warmed more rapidly than normal.

And, of course, sea surface temperatures can enhance hurricane activity and make hurricanes more intense.

And so the bottom line is that it's possible that what we'll see is a fewer number of hurricanes, but that those that can develop, they might be stronger.

>>I want to pivot and talk about the environmental record of Governor DeSantis and the eyes of the political world currently on the governor, of course.

Let's just talk about that a little bit, because he has won some praise, hasn't he, from environmental groups?

I mean, he signed a law in 2021 establishing the resilient Florida program.

How has the governor's record been received by environmental groups from your reporting?

>>Let's go back in time.

And if you can remember, Steve, 2018 when Governor DeSantis was a gubernatorial candidate, and you'll remember that at the time of his campaign that the state was really in the grips of this horrible toxic algae crisis.

And across the peninsula, waterways were fouled and-- >>Foul smellling, right.

>>Toxic algae.

And so Governor DeSantis could see that this was an important economic issue for the state of Florida.

And so he really made that a central issue of his campaign.

And it worked for him.

He was elected and, you know, very soon after taking office, he initiated a series of actions, environmental actions in Florida, aimed at addressing water quality problems in the state.

And at the time, it was, I would say, an exciting time for a lot of environmental groups, because you'll remember that his predecessor was Rick Scott, who really gutted environmental programs in the state.

He very famously banned the words climate change from state agencies.

And so, you know, it is true that Governor Ron DeSantis has done a lot more on the environment than Rick Scott.

He has invested a lot of money into his resilient Florida program, which is aimed at fortifying the state's infrastructure future against rising seas and more damaging hurricanes.

But the environmental groups would be very quick to point out that he hasn't really done anything to address the main environmental threat in our state, which is climate change.

He has done a lot and invested a lot of money in things like Everglades restoration, water quality programs, resilience projects.

But he hasn't really done anything to move the state toward cleaner energy sources.

>>Well, we really appreciate your important reporting on the environment, Amy.

Amy Green from InsideClimate News, thank you so much for coming in.

>>It's my pleasure.

>>Well, you can find a link to Amy's reporting for InsideClimate News on our website.

We've also tackled many issues around flooding, resiliency, climate change, migration, insurance and inequities in recovery on past episodes of NewsNight, you can find those episodes on our website.

It's all at wucf.org/newsnight.

[MUSIC] Well, next tonight, we wanted to check in on the progress of recovery in southwest Florida, which bore the brunt of Ian's ferocious winds last year.

I spoke this week with my colleague Sandra Viktorova, a journalist at WGCU Public Media in Fort Myers.

And I started by asking her to take us back to the landfall of Hurricane Ian and what it was like to ride out the storm.

>>I had a safe place to be.

I was at the emergency operations center in Charlotte County, which is obviously built to withstand the worst of storms.

And even at the the emergency operations center, you could feel all, you know, the building sort of, you know, shaking the vibrations.

You could actually see some water coming in underneath through the front door.

I think the toughest thing for me that night was that my family, you know, was at home and I was watching the eye of the storm go over our family home.

It was a very difficult experience for them.

Quite honestly, it was terrifying.

They were literally holding the door.

My husband, my stepson and my son were were literally holding the door for hours, you know, hoping that the door was going to hold.

Yeah, it was it was a it was a terrifying night.

It was a long day, I should say.

Just a very difficult few days as we all waited to see really how bad it was.

And of course, you're trying to communicate with loved ones and you can't reach them.

So it's the wondering.

It's the worrying.

>>Sandra here in central Florida, recovery from Hurricane Ian's flooding rains has been painfully slow in some places.

What is the road to recovery been like where you are and is it still ongoing?

>>Definitely.

I can tell you, I am up in Charlotte County.

There are still many roofs that need to be repaired.

Today, they actually just started repairing my roof, which I'm excited about.

You know, in many cases I'm one of them dealing with insurance companies trying to, you know, come to an agreement on on what's covered and the other dilemmas.

You know, some people want to build back stronger than before.

They realize that the shingle roofs that they had didn't do very well.

Right.

And so people are thinking, okay, how can I afford to build back with, let's say, a metal roof this time?

So, yes, And I will tell you that that process looks very different in different parts of our community.

Obviously, if you go to the hardest hit areas, there are you know, buildings are just still completely gone, completely wiped out.

Construction hasn't started.

Folks who are lower income still have a great deal of work to be done.

I know there are volunteer organizations going into the some of those communities saying how can they help support where maybe the government funding that came in wasn't enough.

And quite frankly, there are people who will never be able to rebuild again.

I'm speaking specifically about right now thinking about Fort Myers Beach.

There were some old cabins, you know, built out of wood.

Those are completely gone.

You know, when you get either government assistance or your insurance payments, it's not going to be enough to build those old homes to the standard that they have to meet now.

And so some people will realize they do not have the money to rebuild again.

Many of them are simply selling those properties and essentially, Fort Myers Beach will look like a very different place because you're going to have folks who have a lot of money to come in and buy those properties.

The values are still high as far as what those properties are selling at.

And they're going to build some beautiful new new resorts, new condos.

But folks who, you know, perhaps didn't have those high incomes, they will not be able to stay in places like Fort Myers Beach.

>>Some infrastructure, such as the causeway connecting Sanibel to the mainland, was rebuilt quickly after Ian.

But what about infrastructure designed to mitigate the impact of future storms?

Has there been much conversation about how to limit the future effects of sea level rise and hurricane storm surge going forward?

>>Yes, those conversations are ongoing.

I can tell you we've been covering them during just the last few weeks.

But, yes, it's an ongoing conversation with leaders of these emergency operations centers, community groups that have come together to talk about how do you build back better so that there isn't total destruction again.

But the truth is, these communities are being built right back in the same place where all this destruction happened.

And so, of course, if you're building on a barrier island, there is vulnerability, I would say, no matter how you build.

One of the things happening right now is, you know, there is still in Charlotte County specifically, I can tell you there was a lot of damage to seawalls throughout the community.

I'm talking specifically now, for instance, about Punta Gorda, the city of Punta Gorda.

They still had damage that they were repairing from a previous storm when Ian hit.

Now they've got miles and miles of seawall that have to be repaired.

And there is essentially a real, you know, concern, you know, to get this done as quickly as they can, hoping that they get it done before the next storm comes.

>>What's the sense you get, Sandra, from residents in southwest Florida about how they're preparing for hurricane season this year?

Does it feel different this time after last year experience?

>>Gosh, that's a tough question.

I mean, I guess I would say that we are all hopeful that we do not have anything near hurricane in again any time soon.

I think this was a terrifying experience for so many folks who went through it.

I definitely think there were lessons learned.

And I do think that especially folks who, you know, made the decision to stay probably will not stay next time.

They'll at least have learned the lesson, how important it is to evacuate when you're so close to the water.

>>Sandra Viktorova from WGCU.

You can find a link to WGCUs extensive coverage of Hurricane Ian over the last year on our website.

wucf.org/newsnight.

Meantime, be sure to join the conversation on social media at WUCFTV, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

[MUSIC] Finally tonight, we wanted to talk to someone on the front lines of Central Florida's hurricane response.

Last year, I sat down with Seminole Countys emergency manager Alan Harris to discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

So we wanted to check in with him again to see how the recovery effort there has been progressing and how he's preparing for this year's season.

Allen Harris, thank you so much for being here.

Really appreciate it.

>>Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

>>How are communities in Seminole County doing now?

>>We're dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole still.

This was historic flooding, a 500 year flood in the central Florida area encompassing multiple counties.

And of course, after Hurricane Ian and the water started to recede a little bit, Hurricane Nicole comes and adds additional water, additional flooding.

Some homes were flooded over 50 to 53 days.

I think the last home was about 54 days when the water was actually out of the home.

So even minor damage, you know, two or three inches of water can make a home that would have been minor damage if you've had water in there that long.

Now it's major damage almost destroyed.

You have to go to the the studs of the house.

You have to rip everything out because of the mold and mildew.

So those individuals are still dealing with that.

The supply chain issues after COVID.

Believe it or not, we're still talking about that getting product here to repair those homes and the amount of homes that were damaged in Seminole and Orange and Osceola and Polk all the way down into Fort Myers, just - these people are going to be going into the hurricane season, unfortunately under the gun.

>>The predictions seem to suggest for this season that we might have a quote unquote, below average hurricane season.

From an emergency management point of view, how do projections like that weigh into your planning if they do at all?

>>Yeah, that's a great question, and that is a very common question that we give for homeowners associations.

When I speak to Rotary Club, service clubs, things like that.

And I will tell you that as an emergency manager, I really don't care about the forecast.

I'm planning for a category five hurricane coming in at the Brevard Volusia County line and going over straight over the metro Orlando area.

And I think that's what my residents want me to do.

My residents want me to prepare my staff to prepare for the worst case scenario.

Because if we can prepare for the worst case scenario, then hopefully we'll have much less.

The - one of the slowest hurricane seasons in the state of Florida history, Hurricane Andrew happened.

>>Yes.

>>So in Hurricane Andrew, people didn't even know where their neighborhoods were because it wiped their neighborhood away.

So we have to prepare for something like that.

We haven't seen a Category one or higher storm in the central Florida area in a long time anyway.

So that doesn't make sense because Hurricane Ian was well, it was one it was in Fort Myers, but by the time it got here, it wasn't a Category one hurricane.

It was a very, very high tropical storm.

So we haven't seen a hurricane since really, Charley.

>>I want to get into some of the lessons that we learned as a community kind of the hard way in 2022 and how we can sort of use those lessons to plan for future seasons like the one coming up.

We really saw the risks of inland flooding in central Florida last time, particularly in your community, in Seminole County and in Osceola County, Orange County as well.

Should people in those places be on alert for more scenarios like that to play out in the future, do you think?

>>Yes.

Yes.

I mean, we have seen a clim - climate adaptation here and we're seeing the effects of it.

We're seeing more hurricanes, We're seeing more flooding, the very weird type of weather patterns.

So we're preparing for that.

And we want our residents to prepare for that as well.

Not to be scared, but to be prepared to to have a plan of action.

What they're going to do if a hurricane approaches.

>>I mean, intensified storms, as you mentioned, that drop huge amounts of rain likely, and climatologists expect that to happen more in the future.

Do you, as an emergency manager, need to be adapting to the way you you plan for storms, given what climate scientists tell you?

And if so, how do you do that?

>>Sure.

So one of the biggest portions of my office is mitigation.

We need to make sure our community is more resilient to these flood emergencies as they continue to happen.

And it doesn't have to be a hurricane.

Tropical Storm Fay, back in 2008, it was a tropical storm.

>>Yes.

>>And it was at that time the worst flood event we had ever had.

>> --places like that.

>>Right.

And most of the rain happened in Brevard and Orange County.

But the Saint John's River, like the Nile River in Egypt, the Saint John's River flows north.

So when we saw that rain, 16, 18 inches of rain down there, we already knew we were going to be flooded and it would be flooding us about a week later.

So we know those things are going to happen.

And then the end, of course, we had 26 inches of rain and we had the localized flooding along with the Saint John's River flooding.

So both experiences there.

But we have done some mitigation.

So mitigation would be an improvement, a storm water system.

So we're in the process of about five or six projects were large projects where we're improving our stormwater systems, municipalities, the cities also engaged in that, rebuilding some of the bridge structures to allow water to flow through the stormwater systems faster and to get out to the Saint John's River and then of course hopefully up to the Atlantic Ocean in a way, also elevation of homes, buyout of homes.

So some homes have been built in floodplains before we had LIDAR and GIS and things like that and now we know oops, we probably shouldn't have built that home there.

And that home continues to get flooded over and over again.

Maybe it's best for insurance for response.

Everything that we move those families out, if they're willing.

And we have a lot of families that have said, yes, I've been now flooded five times, I don't want to rebuild again, I'm tired.

Will you buy us out?

And we just want to move somewhere else in Seminole County.

>>Let me talk about what people themselves can do and what the main steps are that you would encourage residents to take to prepare as we head into hurricane season, even if they're not what might be regarded as a highly vulnerable place.

What should people be doing?

>>Develop a plan now.

Know if you're going to stay at home, if you live in a mobile home manufactured home, if you live in a low lying area, flood prone area, you may want to evacuate.

So those are things that you need to think about, making sure that you review your insurance policy.

Is your insurance policy covering your home as it is today.

>>Another lesson learned-- >>Right.

>>This time, right?

>>Exactly.

So the supply chain issues, the costs have gone up.

Has your insurance adjusted based on that.

So looking at that, making sure that you identify the important things in your house and you have a list of those things important listed telephone numbers, how many of us have now gone to the cell phone?

And if we lose that, we've lost our entire memory of telephones.

And of course, get a kit together.

You know, some disaster supplies, things like that, and then stay informed.

There are a lot of different ways that people can stay informed.

We have an alerting system.

We really encourage people to sign up for our alerting system.

>>Our state keeps growing at a rapid clip.

We hear about it all the time, increasingly rapid in recent years.

What's your sort of elevator pitch to new residents who might have moved in over the last year or so?

They have no experience of storms.

Why should they take it seriously?

>>Well, we know what's going to happen post storm.

So we really when we go out and we do talks, we whether it's a homeowners association, a service club, whatever, we always try to talk about what to expect.

So after a hurricane, what should I expect?

You should expect no communication.

Cellular towers to be down, that you're not going to use cellular service anymore.

If you get your information from Internet through the cellular, it's not going to be there.

You're going to be without power and you're going to be without power for a while.

And I'm talking about strong, strong storm.

Debris is going to be an issue.

We know debris is going to be an issue.

It's an issue every single time in Ian, we had 1 million cubic yards of debris.

Now, for me, that's hard to picture.

I can't picture 1 million cubic yards of debris.

So we're going to put it in a way that everyone us in here in central Florida knows.

We've all been to Epcot or we've seen pictures of Epcot, Right.

So 11 Spaceship Earths.

>>Incredible amount.

>>Seminole County had to pick up 11 of those.

The garbage truck isn't going to pick that up.

It's going to take us a long time.

And we have contractors coming in from all over the nation.

It's going to take us months to pick up debris, not weeks, months to pick up debris.

So it may your street may look nice.

Well, all the others don't.

So please don't judge your debris on your road by what the rest of the county has experienced.

If you have your road and this happened to me and they said, well, there's not much debris on my road, but you're blessed and I'm so happy for you.

But in Geneva, they're they've been hit hard and they can't even get down their road because there's so much debris.

So don't judge.

And and we just know that there's going to be an issue, unfortunately, with shelter transitions.

So people getting into a shelter, affordable housing, that's something that we're going to be dealing with, mental health issues, addiction issues, recovery issues.

Those things happen during the storm just like any other time of life.

And we have to deal with those things as well.

So a lot of things to think about this hurricane season from an emergency management point of view.

>>So be prepared and be patient, I guess is what we would tell all, even our local residents.

>>Thank you.

>>Alan Harris from the Seminole County EOC, the emergency manager up there in Seminole County.

Thank you so much for coming in.

Really appreciate your time.

>>Thank you.

>>A reminder that WUCF is here for you when hurricane season arrives.

Be sure to visit WUCF Storm Center, which has lots of useful information, including the latest from the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network, FPREN.

It's all at wucf.org/storms.

Well, that is all the time we have for this week.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.