Hurricane Ian made landfall with speeds that could reach 150mph (240 km/h) along Florida’s southwest coast in September. 28th 2022.
The storm’s powerful winds and torrential rains ruined whole communities down to rubble and killed over 120 residents and many who drowned in the floodwaters that resulted from the more than 18 feet (5.5-meter) storm surge. Bridges linking Sanibel, Captiva, and other barrier islands to the mainland were flooded and shattered, isolating those areas.
The estimates of the financial impact are still in the early stages. As a historical researcher who studies South Florida’s cities and the environment,, I’m sure that the devastation Ian caused will rank as one of the most destructive storms ever recorded, as well as Harvey as well as Maria from 2017 as well as Katrina in 2005.
Based on how Florida has dealt with similar catastrophes during the previous time, Ian will not significantly slow down the rate of the State’s explosive growth in population soon.
The snowbirds are shifting their route.
More than 22 million people reside in Florida.
This is about 30% more than 16 million residents within the State at the time of 2000. Demographers estimate that the population will keep growing, reaching 25 million in the next 10 years.
Florida is the most popular destination in the United States for Americans looking to move to another state.
However, many Florida residents are only there in winter and return when the weather gets warmer. Following the storm, researchers predicted that the majority of these short-term residents who are also known as snowbirds will not skip their annual journey. They’ll simply change their migration direction and eventually land elsewhere in Florida.
South Florida real estate agents are expecting a stronger than normal rental demand throughout Dade as well as Broward counties along the coast of southeast Florida. The area was able to escape Ian’s fury. The increased demand is causing more increases in already soaring real estate market in locations such as Miami as well as Fort Lauderdale.
Part-time and new Floridians are attracted by the same reasons that have attracted the snowbirds and settlers for over many years: sunny weather and views of the water as well as low tax rates as well as fewer restrictions as compared to other regions of the United States.
In the process of draining the swampland
The early developers did not let harsh environments discourage them. After the Civil War, they transformed the peninsular State’s swamps, which were populated by mosquitoes and alligators, into homes, hotels and agricultural land.
Florida promoters enticed both settlers and tourists alike with their promises of prosperity, land and leisure regardless of whether their sales advertisements were about sugar and citrus as well as sun, sand and sugar. Engineers employed modern technology to complete the huge-scale transformation and pave the way for the most unprecedented expansion and speculation on land.
Everglades drainage was first noticed in the 1880s. A wealthy Philadelphian by the name of Hamilton Disston created the Okeechobee Land Co. to establish a system of canals that would aid in “land reclamation.”
Disston bought over 4 million acres that the State declared as uninhabitable swampland for $1 million dollars and a promise to improve the land. The year was 1881. The New York Times declared this “the largest purchase of land ever made by a single person in the world.”
His gambit sparked Florida’s first real estate boom.
Disston distributed brochures throughout the nation, and to those as far like Scotland, Denmark, Germany and Italy and Italy, which touted the State’s “inexhaustibly rich lands” and an “equitable and lovely climate where merely to live is a pleasure, a luxury heretofore accessible only to millionaires,” according to Frank B. Sessa’s history of 1950 in Greater Miami.
Disston along with others started selling the land they had reclaimed to farmers, railroads as well as land owners. In the early 20th century, the inland drainage was bringing about the sugar citrus and winter vegetable industries.
The drainage enabled for railway majors Henry Flagler and Henry Plant to expand their railroads into the southwest and southeast of Florida respectively. Train travel significantly increased possibilities for tourists as well as new residents in the latter part of the 19th century.