• Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    But they do rebuild to better resist hurricanes? Florida doesn’t do much good for its people, but it does build for storms.

    I remember when Hurricane Sandy eviscerated the northeast. I was living in Florida at the time and people were shocked that a cat 1 hurricane could cause so much damage. Part of the answer was building codes. Modern buildings in Florida are built to tolerate much worse winds, but New York and New Jersey, where strong hurricanes aren’t as common, still had many homes built without such thought in mind.

    That’s why a cat 1 in Florida is a normal day, where if people are hunkered down, they just party straight through it without fear, even though the same storm can devastate other states. Building codes make it possible.

    The new problem Florida has yet to solve is flooding. Although the storm drains are supposed to handle a significant volume, stronger storms + rising sea levels are overwhelming the infrastructure. It also doesn’t help that towns are built at sea level in former swampland.