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Henderson: Until luck runs out, we'll enjoy the Category 5 sunsets

 
A Boston firm estimated that a storm the size of Hurricane Katrina would inflict $175 billion in damage to the Tampa Bay area.
A Boston firm estimated that a storm the size of Hurricane Katrina would inflict $175 billion in damage to the Tampa Bay area.
Published Aug. 4, 2017

We always talk here about being "prepared" for hurricane season but other than fetching some candles and sandbags when there is a threat and making an emergency run to the liquor store, our basic plan consists of crossing our collective fingers.

People keep buying waterfront homes. Commerce keeps springing up along the beaches.

Given the warnings that catastrophe could be as close as the next tropical weather forecast, it seems to be a dubious strategy. The latest came in the Washington Post, which recently ran a story headlined "Tampa Bay's Coming Storm."

The story referenced a study by a Boston firm that estimated a storm the size of Hurricane Katrina would inflict $175 billion (with a b) in damage to the Tampa Bay area. I tried wrapping my head around that figure and almost got a migraine thinking how much damage it would take to run up that kind of tab. (For context, the combined annual budgets next year for Tampa and Hillsborough County total less than $6 billion.)

Yet, we continue to look at hurricanes in what I must assume is the same way Californians look at earthquakes. You know it's going to happen one day, but you're not going to move somewhere else to minimize the chances of being destroyed.

It has been 13 years since Hurricane Charley inched up the gulf coast with a bullseye on the mouth of Tampa Bay. Charley basically exploded from a Category 2 to a Category 4 in the snap of finger. Its winds reached about 150 miles an hour.

While nearly a million residents of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties tried to get somewhere, anywhere, to safety, Charley turned to the right about 100 miles south of Tampa and basically leveled Port Charlotte.

If Charley had stayed on its path for a few more hours, much of downtown Tampa would have been submerged under 15 feet of water. Those beautiful homes along Bayshore Boulevard would have been destroyed. Davis Islands would have ceased to exist.

There likely would have been severe damage to MacDill Air Force Base and Tampa International Airport. Tampa General Hospital would have been right in the path.

The $15 billion in damage Charley caused would have been multiplied by factors we don't want to contemplate.

How does any community prepare to take a punch like that?

Jimmy Buffett once sang about trying to reason with hurricane season. His solution: "I passed out in my hammock."

I think I get his point.

People choose to live here for the beauty of the waterfront and the sunsets along the Gulf. We love our beaches and rivers, and we love not shoveling snow. We know we're lucky that a major storm hasn't hit Tampa directly since 1921 and one day that will change.

It will be bad. Climate change will make it worse. Before some denier starts screaming that it's all a liberal plot, the rising sea water won't be choosy. It will flood the houses of those who voted for Republicans the same as Democrats. Disaster isn't a red or blue issue.

But what's the alternative?

We're not going to start tearing down condos along the Gulf because a hurricane might hit there one day. Building codes are stricter in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, but in a Category 5 how much difference will that really make?

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Tampa is trying to upgrade its drainage system but when a wall of water 15 feet high packing billions of gallons washes ashore, the system that can handle that hasn't yet been invented.

We live here because we love it. We've been warned, and we appreciate the concern. We know there's a good chance our luck will run out one day, and maybe we get out of town before it hits.

If the worst happens, we made our choice. The best we can hope for is to live with it.