Some Thoughts On Ian’s Aftermath In The Heartland

Although much of the national press coverage in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian has focused on the damage the storm caused in coastal areas, the effects here in the Heartland that covers much of the areas where members of the Ancient Islands Group of Sierra Club live were pretty horrible, too.

As noted in a previous post, flood waters along the Peace River were more extreme than hardly anyone alive today can recall.

Although the flood waters have subsided, water levels are still impressive in the Peace River’s headwaters, where water flowing toward the river via the Peace Creek Drainage Canal is still over its banks.

To put this in perspective, even though river flow at State Road 60 where the river proper begins is no longer flowing at record levels, it is flowing at more than five times the average volume for this time of year based on 83 years of records.

Downstream in Arcadia, the river is flowing at a volume more than four times the average of this time of year. But two weeks ago the river was flowing at more than three times the record flow recorded over the past 91 years that records have been kept.

The flooding was shocking, but not surprising when you consider much of the area received nearly a month’s worth of rainfall in a couple of days following a fairly rainy September.

This is certainly a time to evaluate where development should occur based on how clear it is where historic wetlands actually lie and how development of more impermeable surfaces over the several decades have affected the volume and velocity of stormwater runoff . That runoff likely overwhelmed some of the stormwater retention areas that were not big or deep enough to accommodate this kind of flow.

That’s because there has been perennial pressure from the development community to require retention areas to be as small as possible because the larger the retention areas, the smaller number of residential lots or the smaller amount of square feet of commercial and industrial development can be constructed. This is a good time to review those compromises.

Another issue is how this will affect insurance rates or even whether insurance will be available, which also affects where and whether development can occur.

This is not a new issue.

I attended a conference in 2011 in which insurance experts predicted the time would come in the foreseeable future when parts of Florida would become practically uninsurable.

Finally, there is an environmental aspect to this discussion.

On Nov. 8, Polk voters will be asked to approve a referendum that would expand the amount of land in Polk County that can be used to, among other things, to protect important water resources. That means recharge areas, wetlands and river floodplains and all of the wildlife that depends on these places for their survival.

If voters approve the referendum, that could provide an opportunity to rethink what lands should be preserved instead of developed and how to link existing conservation lands to preserve as much of the historic wetlands connections as possible.

This is an alternative that is important to consider while there’s still time.

 

 

Posted in Group Conservation Issues.