A Small Light After Hurricane Ian

As you know Hurricane Ian totally devastated areas of Florida, especially the Ft Myers area.

Well, there’s one small light out there pointing the way to how to avoid the devastation that Ian caused. It’s a place that’s only 12 miles northeast of Fort Myers, and I’ve written about it before. It’s a community that’s called Babcock Ranch.

While you’d think it also was destroyed by Ian, it’s lights never went out and I mean that literally. 

Babcock Ranch is not on the power grid. It’s lit by fields of solar panels and the lights stayed on even through the Category 3 and 4 winds.

You might be saying, what about all the flooding and the destruction of houses that happened in the rest of Ft. Myers. Well, this community was designed as a model for urban development in a climate change future. 

The streets in this meticulously planned neighborhood were designed to flood so houses don’t. Native landscaping was planted along roads to help control storm water run-off. Power and internet lines are buried to avoid wind damage. This is all in addition to being built to meet Florida’s robust building codes.

So, the destruction and loss of life that others experienced in the Ft. Myers area, didn’t happen at Babcock Ranch! This points to the way to avoid future damage; we just need to start remaking our communities to be as resilient as Babcock. And yes, this one small light can grow and light the way for the whole world.