One Year After Hurricane Ian, Southwest Florida Still Struggling Physically, Mentally

Satellite view of catastrophic Hurricane Ian about to 
make landfall in southwest Florida one year ago today. 

 One year ago today, on September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian, just shy of Category 5 strength, slammed into the area around Fort Myers Beach, Florida, killing at least 150 people and becoming the second most expensive United States weather disaster on record. 

I don't mark the anniversary of every hurricane, but Ian was such a monster that I can't avoid it. Thankfully, so far this year, we haven't had a repeat of Ian.  Hurricane Idalia on August 31 in northern Florida was really, really bad, but not at all in the same league as Ian. 

It was the fourth strongest hurricane on record to hit Florida. Two of the  top three hurricanes hit well before the extensive coastal development in Florida ever hit. 

Hurricane Andrew was the most recent of the big three, hitting in 1992. Andrew was incredibly devastating, but the worst of it barely missed super heavy populated Miami. Instead, it destroyed the town of Homestead, Florida, which had a population of 30,000, not hundreds of thousands, like southwestern Florida when Ian hit. 

Recovery has gone in fits and starts, and it will take years before places like Fort Myers Beach, Captiva, Sanibel Island and Pine Island. People whose homes were wrecked are still fighting and in some cases suing insurance companies. 

At least 90 percent of the buildings in Fort Myers Beach were damaged or destroyed. 

Hurricane Ian has of course faded from the headlines, except on this anniversary date. More recent mega-disasters, like the wildfires in Maui last month and the catastrophic floods in Vermont in July, have since came and gone from the headlines

In the months and years after a major disaster, the victims are largely forgotten, but they're still struggling. Fox 13 news in Tampa Bay reported this example, which I think is pretty representative of what people in the Ian region are going through: 

"'My house is still uninhabitable. It has even yet to start repairs because my insurance company won't approve it at all and FEMA did very little to help me. I'm paying an exorbitant amount of rent just to survive. I've lost a year of equity in my home. I'm barely making it. I could be homeless in the future,' said South Venice resident Carrie Smith."

Yes, businesses are gradually reopening, and many residents are moving back into newly repaired homes. But the pace of recovery from disasters like this is glacial. 

This is devastating for mental health. The Tampa Bay Times reports six suicides in the aftermath of Ian. The newspaper also says experts expect more suicides as victims hit one dead end after another, prevent them from moving on from the hurricane. 

I guess this is the most important lesson to take away after a big weather calamities. Let's face it, after a disaster, the people and corporations and governments that are supposed to help serious often let victims down. 

Mental health is a big, scary issue after a disaster. As worrying as the actual physical work of pulling your life back together again. Please, if you know somebody struggling after Vermont's flood this summer, try to help and support them as much as you can. 

Climate change is making these huge disasters more likely and more frequent. Climate change is not only a physical, global and development crisis. It's also a global mental health crisis.