Putting aside the arguable lack of wisdom of building on a barrier island for just a moment...

[Tommy Carcetti]

...I still find it inexplicably sad seeing the catastrophic destruction following a hurricane, and the resulting loss of people's business and livelihood.

Here is some footage today from Fort Myers Beach which--without exaggeration--resembles the Ukrainian city of Mariupol following the recent Russian carpet bombing campaign of that town.

Around the 0:30 mark, you'll see a property where the only thing left standing is the foundation of a swimming pool.

Until yesterday, that was the Silver Sands Resort, a fully functioning and standing hotel:




And I'm sure over the years of its existence, there were many happy vacation memories for many people at places like Silver Sands, now completely destroyed over the course of a couple of hours.

Now, the silver lining I am assuming is that a community like Fort Myers Beach is that a lot of the residences are seasonal or vacation homes, and that hopefully most people who were living there at the time of Ian heeded evacuation orders well before the storm. Such was the case with Hurricane Michael and Mexico Beach near Panama City in 2018, which suffered similar near-total destruction but thankfully very little loss of life.

Of course, the greater discussion is whether building anything in these type of places so susceptible to nature's fury is anything but a fool's errand. And we'll have to have those discussions repeatedly in the future.

But for now, regardless of the greater implications, it's just very sad to see, and nothing more.

[Igel]

1. Ouch.

My aunt and cousin lived in Ft. Meyers.

They'd be hurting now. (Both died just over a decade ago ... Crap, it's been that long?)