I don't know. I was startled that Lee County officials didn't know the extent of the damage until today and couldn't get rescue crews out to the stranded because of danger to their own lives. I was surprised that the FP&L energy grid had to be "rebuilt not restored". FP&L is a regulated state utility. To make matters worse, the Lee County’s 911 system is down and calls are be rerouted to Collier County Sheriff, according to the post. “You can’t imagine the calls,” the post read.
Lee County is ninth in the state in population--out of sixty-seven--788,000 people. Big cities there, Fort Myers, Cape Coral. Not a remote county far from sophisticated urban centers. A BIG county and I assume without really knowing, with a robust, competent local government. Roger Desjarlais certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about. But Hurricane Ian is not the most powerful hurricane to strike Florida; Florida has quite a bit of experience with canes. So how is it that Ian might be (they still don't know the number of dead) the deadliest hurricane in Florida history?
I'm prejudiced. As long as I've lived down here I have thought that if you are ambulatory and die in a hurricane the cause of death on your death certificate should read "stupidity." You have so much lead time with hurricanes! Tornadoes can rear up in minutes. Earthquakes in seconds. Hurricanes are slow as molasses in January. We have satellite images, we have trackers, we have hurricane hunters, we have spaghetti models. All warned that Lee County was in the cross hairs.
Yesterday morning the governor, Ron Desantis, said publicly that it was then "too late to leave," that people should stay put. The hurricane made landfall at 3:05 pm. That does not sound irrational; there does come a time when it is too dangerous to be out on the highways. But was yesterday morning the time, with this storm? With this storm surge peoples' homes became their coffins. Could all Lee County evacuations have been made mandatory? Instead Desantis made hunkering down mandatory. I don't mean to unnecessarily dump on Desantis--who I loathe and despise--I don't know. I don't know if Desantis fucked up, if Lee County fucked up, if anybody fucked up. I just have the macro picture: 1) Nobody should die in a hurricane 2) Florida of all states should be hardened against the damage to critical infrastructure--911 is down!--that has occurred in Lee County 3) Critical infrastructure--a bridge collapsed!--was completely knocked out (97% without electricity in Lee) 4) Lots of people died. I don't see how you can add those four together and get "competent" on the other side of the = sign.
