IAN

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figure waterfront living will never go out of style, and they build more expensive, lifted homes in place of old cottages.

In Florida, hurricanes have a slash-and-burn effect, giving city officials and contractors another shot at protecting or hardening their shores for the inevitable.

“Fort Myers is going to look a little bit different when it’s rebuilt,” said Whit Remer, Tampa’s sustainability and resilience officer. “It might lose a bit of its charm. But unfortunately this is what climate adaptation looks like sometimes.”

Madeira Beach Mayor John Hendricks got a taste for his community’s tenuous position when Tropical Storm Eta, relatively weak and far offshore, swamped coastal neighborhoods with flooding in 2020.

If a hurricane like Ian were to cut through Tampa Bay, the mayor knows the damage could be life-altering.

“I don’t know if I could afford to rebuild,” he said.

Visits to Southwest Florida to drop off donated supplies since Ian only reinforced his worry.

The mayor saw air conditioning units flung off condo buildings around Estero Boulevard in Fort Myers Beach. He stared at lots where houses were reduced to pilings. He wondered whether people died in the empty spaces. Images of Gulf Boulevard flashed in his mind.

“Basically everything reminded me of Madeira Beach,” Hendricks said.

Farther south on the Pinellas barrier islands, Treasure Island Fire Rescue Chief Trip Barrs remembers the tense days before the storm, when Ian seemed destined to hit Tampa Bay. He walked around the fire station one last time before evacuating. He said goodbye.

The building decades-old and about 6 feet above ground would have been gutted by a big flood, Barrs said, along with the antique fire truck inside.

Ian reminded Barrs also Treasure Island’s emergency manager of Charley in 2004, when he was working in Dunedin. His fire chief there had entered a break room almost in tears, convinced the storm would be The One.

Like Charley, Ian spared Tampa Bay. Treasure Island was fine. Immediately after the storm, Barrs said, residents were focused on the destruction and wanted to send help.

“We got to see what happened just to our south and know that would have happened here,” he said.

But memories grow dim “How long it’s going to stay front of mind, or top of mind, for them,” Barrs said, “I don’t know.” outside the coastal city’s firehouse on 108th Avenue. Barrs figured if Hurricane Ian came through Tampa Bay, his station would have been flooded out.

Hopefully long enough. For emergency managers like him, Ian wasn’t just a near-miss.

It was a forecast of its own.

Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampabay.com.

Follow @zacksampson

Contact Langston Taylor at ltaylor@tampabay.com.

Follow @langstonitaylor