Been a lifelong fan of civil engineering, and watched with amusement here in Minnesota as they tried to drain, fill, and build in and on swamps. Eventually, the swamp always won- Flooding and consuming even the best designed highways, buildings, and other questionable feats of engineering that assaulted the swamps.
Few years back I inherited a trailer and a 99 year lot lease near Naples in the really big swamp that’s much of Florida. From Atlantic to Gulf and stretching darn near up to Disney World, the Everglades is one big lovely rich ecosystem that never ceases to entertain and amaze. Unfortunately real estate scammers long ago figured out that folks up north loved the warm winter weather. Come the retirement of the postwar middle class many cashed out of their homes up north and moved to Florida, landing in thousands of trailers, condos, townhouses, and a few houses plopped down on a couple feet of fill atop the Everglades.
Back in1960 Hurricane Donna blew through southwest Florida, pushing salt water 30 miles inland… But only a couple thousand hardy folks lived in that storm’s path. Today metro Naples AKA Collier County is home to over 400,000, mostly 10 feet or less above sea level. To make infrastructure work where it shouldn’t requires hundreds of sewer lift stations with backup generators and a whole ‘nother system of natural gas pipelines to fuel the backup generators. Then there’s the usual water system plus a second water system to provide recycled waste water to irrigate the lawns of the numerous golf courses and Planned Unit Developments (PUDs). So there’s a lot of pipes in that few feet of fill between pavement and the salt water table, and a lot of buried conduit and vaults carrying electric and telecom wiring too. What could go wrong?
After trashing the Keys and Marco Island, Hurricane Irma was tiring and didn’t have much energy left to do major structural damage, leaving much of the built environment of greater Naples bruised but still standing. Irma delivered a foot or so rather than feet of rain and the storm surge thankfully underperformed the forecasts. Oughta be up and ready for the tourists again in a couple days… Not!
Despite the backup generators, multiple sanitary sewer lift pumps are down and sewage is backing up onto streets and into structures. If you have water, it has to be boiled… That’s what happens when you have pressurized recycled water systems and your fresh water system next to it loses pressure. If your power comes from an above ground service line, the power poles or a palm or pine tree has taken them down. If your power lines are underground, they’re flooded and shorted out, or just plain “smoked” Same with internet, phones wired or wireless, and the opiate of the masses, cable TV. So despite being a few feet above rather than below sea level with much newer infrastructure, greater Naples is just as dead in the water as New Orleans after Katrina, with little or no electricity, water, communications, or fuel as the heat index soars into triple digits daily.
You’d think folks would learn and move upland beyond the flood plains, hurricane paths, and slosh zones. But the meme ”Naples Strong” is already being shouted by the local boosters and real estate scammers, as they plot another FEMA financed rebuilding where they shouldn’t have built in the first place.
Will Florida and America ever learn not to mess with the Everglades?