Why Ron DeSantis' Version Of "Resilience" - Money & Concrete - Failed And Will Continue To Fail

[hatrack]

Hurricane Ian didn’t just wreak havoc across Florida’s southwest coast. It also dumped so much rain inland that rivers across the state flooded. One of the hardest hit was the Peace River, which flows through the town of Arcadia, dozens of miles from the Gulf coast. The floodwaters blocked highways, inundated cattle ranches and stranded hundreds of people. When Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared in Arcadia on Oct. 2 to view the damage, the shiny white boots he wore immediately made him the object of social media amusement. But by donning those wading boots, usually worn by fishermen on the coasts, Governor DeSantis exposed a truth he has avoided for the last four years: Climate change isn’t just happening along Florida’s edge.

When he was running to replace Gov. Rick Scott, a climate change denier, Mr. DeSantis sneered that he was “not in the pews of the church of the global warming leftists.” When he took office in 2019, however, climate advocates found some reason for hope: He appointed a “chief resilience officer” and supported state programs that spent millions of dollars on “resilience” projects.

Resilience, Florida style, turned out to mean something different than what climate advocates might have imagined. It primarily meant using taxpayer money to protect the rampant development of low-lying areas such as Lee County — development that some of Governor DeSantis’s staunchest campaign contributors helped lead. Hurricane Ian has revealed in brutal detail the inadequacy of his approach. The sea walls, sewage pump stations, wastewater treatment plants and “living shorelines” that taxpayers funded did little to help inland towns like Arcadia. Hundreds of Central Florida homes remain flooded two weeks on, as rivers flush out the heavy rain. One study found that climate change may have added 10 percent to Ian’s rainfall.

Protecting Florida from the effects of future storms like Ian calls for more than just resilience. It calls for carefully retreating from the rising water and rebuilding where it’s safe. But retreat has never been in Governor DeSantis’s plan. There has been little to no attempt by his administration to stop further development in vulnerable coastal areas. As recently as August, Mr. DeSantis and his cabinet approved a high-rise resort development in Fort Myers Beach, where evacuation times already exceeded state regulations.

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/opinion/environment/ron-desantis-hurricane-ian-climate-change.html

[sop]

1. "Resilience" means spending huge sums to protect his wealthy supporters' waterfront properties

from the inevitable storms. Call it hurricane socialism; all Floridians are forced to subsidize coastal development through higher taxes, fees and insurance premiums.