But as the tireless work of rebuilding begins in places like hard-hit Pasco County, Idalia’s landfall renews the question of whether it’s appropriate to rebuild in some areas, experts told CNN, and where to do so.
Human-caused climate change is wreaking havoc on the Gulf Coast, which is already experiencing some of the fastest sea level rise in the world. As the ocean swallows shore, it makes the impacts of storm surge and flooding more dangerous for the communities in these low-lying areas.
“One of the major questions we have going forward is should we rebuild these areas and spend federal and state dollars to continue to rebuild areas that will be hit in the future,” Jesse Keenan, a professor of sustainable real estate at Tulane University’s School of Architecture, told CNN.
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A broken section of road and destroyed houses are seen in Matlacha, Florida, on Saturday, October 1.
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President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden talk to people impacted by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida, during a tour of the area on Wednesday, October 5.
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Greg Guidi, left, and Thomas Bostic unload supplies from a boat on Pine Island, Florida, on Tuesday, October 4. With the roads onto the island made impassable, people were getting supplies to the island by boat.
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Members of a search-and-rescue team comb through the wreckage on Fort Myers Beach on Tuesday.
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Stephanie Fopiano, right, gets a hug from Kenya Taylor, both from North Port, as she gets emotional about her situation at the Venice High School hurricane shelter in Venice, Florida, on Monday, October 3.
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Workers and residents clear debris from a destroyed bar in Fort Myers on Saturday, October 1.
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Beachgoers look at a large shrimping boat that was swept ashore in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Saturday.
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Local muralist Candy Miller, left, embraces Ana Kapel, the manager of the Pier Peddler, a gift shop that sold women's fashions, as she becomes emotional at the site where the store once stood on Fort Myers Beach on Friday.
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Waters from a rain-swollen pond cover grass and a foot path around Quarterman Park in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Friday.
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Members of the US Army National Guard help people evacuate from flood waters in North Port, Florida, on Friday, September 30.
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Water streams past buildings on the oceanfront on Sanibel Island, Florida, on Friday.
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University of Central Florida students use an inflatable mattress as they evacuate an apartment complex in Orlando, Florida, on Friday, September 30.
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A firefighter examines a fallen tree in Charleston, South Carolina, on Friday.
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A man tows a canoe through a flooded street of his neighborhood in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, on Friday.
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People wait in line to enter a Home Depot store in Cape Coral, Florida, on Friday. Many in Florida were still without power.
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The wreckage of a car teeters on a buckled roadway on Friday in Matlacha, Florida.
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Members of the Texas A&M Task Force 1 Search and Rescue team look for anyone needing help on Friday in Fort Myers, Florida.
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A man takes photos Thursday, September 29, of boats that were damaged by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida.
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Bob Levitt returns to his condemned home to retrieve his cat, which he found hiding in a bedroom Thursday in Palm Beach County, Florida. A tornado spawned by the hurricane left residents homeless.
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This aerial photo shows damaged homes and debris in Fort Myers Beach on Thursday.
Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/Zuma
Jake Moses and Heather Jones explore a section of destroyed businesses in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, on Thursday.
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Workers in Naples, Florida, clean up debris on Thursday.
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A section of the Sanibel Causeway is seen on Thursday after it collapsed due to the effects of the storm.
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Stedi Scuderi looks over her flooded apartment in Fort Myers on Thursday.
From Orange County Government
A resident of Orange County, Florida, and a couple of dogs are rescued from floodwaters on Thursday.
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A boat lies partially submerged in Punta Gorda, Florida, on Thursday.
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Tom Park begins cleaning up in Punta Gorda on Thursday.
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Residents of Port Charlotte, Florida, line up for free food that was being distributed from a taco truck on Thursday.
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A causeway to Florida's Sanibel Island is seen on Thursday. The causeway is the only way to get to or from Sanibel and Captiva Islands to Florida's mainland.
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People clear a large tree off their home in Fort Myers on Thursday.
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Homes are flooded in Port Charlotte on Thursday.
Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/AP
Jonathan Strong dives into floodwaters while he and his girlfriend, Kylie Dodd, knock on doors to help people in a flooded mobile home community in Iona, Florida, on Thursday. "I can't just sit around while my house is intact and let other people suffer," he said. "It's what we do: community helping community."
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Brenda Brennan sits next to a boat that pushed up against her apartment building in Fort Myers on Thursday. She said the boat floated in around 7 p.m. Wednesday.
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People walk along the beach looking at property damaged in Bonita Springs, Florida, on Thursday.
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An Orlando resident is rescued from floodwaters on Thursday.
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Vehicles make their way through flooded streets in Fort Myers on Thursday.
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Stefanie Karas stands in her flooded apartment in Fort Myers on Thursday. She is an artist and was salvaging what she could from her home.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
Heavily damaged homes are seen on Sanibel Island on Thursday.
Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA Presss
A spiral staircase lies next to a damaged pickup truck in Sanibel, Florida, on Thursday.
Marco Bello/Reuters
A flooded street is seen in downtown Fort Myers after Ian made landfall on Wednesday, September 28.
Marco Bello/Reuters
A woman surveys damage through a door during a power outage in Fort Myers on Wednesday.
NOAA/NASA
A satellite image shows the hurricane making landfall on the southwest coast of Florida on Wednesday.
Naples Police
The streets of Naples, Florida, are flooded on Wednesday. City officials asked residents to
shelter in place until further notice.
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A woman is helped out of a muddy area Wednesday in Tampa, Florida, where
water was receding due to a negative storm surge.
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Strong winds hit Punta Gorda on Wednesday.
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A woman holds an umbrella inverted by the wind in Tampa on Wednesday.
Pedro Portal/El Nuevo Herald/TNS/Abaca/Reuters
Sailboats anchored in Roberts Bay are blown around in Venice, Florida, on Wednesday.
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Melvin Phillips stands in the flooded basement of his mobile home in Stuart, Florida, on Wednesday.
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Damage is seen at the Kings Point condos in Delray Beach, Florida, on Wednesday.
Officials believe it was caused by a tornado fueled by Hurricane Ian.
Marco Bello/Reuters
A TV crew broadcasts from the beach in Fort Myers on Wednesday.
Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/AP
Utility trucks are staged in a rural lot Wednesday in The Villages, a Florida retirement community.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Highways in Tampa are empty Wednesday ahead of Hurricane Ian making landfall. Several coastal counties in western Florida were under mandatory evacuations.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
An airplane is overturned in Pembroke Pines, Florida, on Wednesday.
Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP
Zuram Rodriguez surveys the damage around her home in Davie, Florida, early on Wednesday.
Ramon Espinosa/AP
People play dominoes by flashlight during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, on Wednesday. Crews in Cuba have been working to restore power for millions after the storm battered the western region with high winds and dangerous storm surge,
causing an islandwide blackout.
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People walk through a flooded street in Batabano, Cuba, on Tuesday.
Chris O'Meara/AP
Southwest Airlines passengers check in near a sign that shows canceled flights at the Tampa International Airport on Tuesday.
Ramon Espinosa/AP
Maria Llonch retrieves belongings from her home in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, on Tuesday.
Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel via AP
Traffic builds along Interstate 4 in Tampa on Tuesday.
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A man carries his children through rain and debris in Pinar del Rio on Tuesday.
Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters
People drive through debris in Pinar del Rio on Tuesday.
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Frederic and Mary Herodet board up their Gulf Bistro restaurant in St. Pete Beach, Florida, on Tuesday.
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NASA's Artemis I rocket rolls back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday. The launch of the rocket was postponed due to the impending arrival of Hurricane Ian.
NASA via AP
Hurricane Ian is seen from the International Space Station on Monday, September 26.
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A Cuban family transports personal belongings to a safe place in the Fanguito neighborhood of Havana on Monday.
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A family carries a dog to a safe place in Batabano on Monday.
Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP
People wait in lines to fuel their vehicles at a Costco store in Orlando on Monday.
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Ryan Copenhaver, manager of Siesta T's in Sarasota, Florida, installs hurricane panels over the store's windows on Monday.
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A man helps pull small boats out of Cuba's Havana Bay on Monday.
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Shelves are empty in a supermarket's water aisle in Kissimmee on Monday.
Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Press Wire
Cathie Perkins, emergency management director in Pinellas County, Florida, references a map Monday that indicates where storm surges would impact the county. During a news conference, she urged anyone living in those areas to evacuate.
Andrew West/USA Today Network
Sarah Peterson fills sandbags in Fort Myers Beach on September 24.
Florida is the site of the latest major hurricane, but experts CNN spoke to said the entire Gulf Coast is experiencing a perfect storm of climate impacts, like sea level rise and stronger storms fueled by warming waters, combined with a shrinking insurance pool in states like Florida and Louisiana.
“There are certainly some communities that have hit that tipping point” of relocating instead of rebuilding, said Jeremy Porter, the head of climate implications at the nonprofit research group First Street Foundation. “If you look at the trajectory of climate risks we’re seeing, there’s going to be a lot more communities hitting that tipping point in the next 30 to 50 years.”
Major insurers have largely pulled out of Florida and smaller ones have gone bankrupt – leaving many homeowners with Citizens Property Insurance Corporation – the state’s insurer of last resort.
And while there are increasingly uninsurable places in all 50 states, experts view California, Florida and Louisiana as the three major hotspots where the pool of uninsured homeowners is growing – in part due to larger disasters like hurricanes and wildfires.
There are different factors at play in all three states, but with similar outcomes: As an increasing number of private insurers stop offering flood or wildfire policies or go bankrupt, more people are driven to the state-supported insurer of last resort, where they typically have to pay more money for a narrower policy.
In Louisiana, for instance, 17% of homeowners insurance policyholders had their policies canceled last year, according to a survey done by Louisiana State University.
Porter told CNN the fact that Citizens has become the default insurer in Florida “is crazy to think about.”
“Citizens won’t be able to withstand the economic cost” of multiple major storms, he said. Last year’s Hurricane Ian was the costliest storm in Florida state history, and more storms of its magnitude could be a serious blow to the state insurer.
There is also the question of rebuilding repeatedly flooded infrastructure, like roads and bridges.
Idalia was different from Ian partly because it struck a less-populated area, and one that had more natural defenses in the vast marshlands and wilderness around the Big Bend area. But Idalia was the strongest storm to make landfall on that stretch of Florida coast in more than 125 years, and it wasn’t necessarily built to withstand it – evidenced by the cottage-like homes swept from their foundations by Idalia’s massive storm surge.
Porter said that rebuilding homes to be elevated and better able to withstand hurricanes or other climate disasters is an option. But it takes the combination of updated building codes and a healthy insurance market to make rebuilding in a resilient way an option for all homeowners, not just the wealthy who can afford it.
Keenan said Idalia and other Gulf Coast storms beg the question of where to rebuild, especially considering that some of Idalia’s hardest-hit areas were island communities that are only accessible by bridge, like Cedar Key.
“Many of these communities are on very tenuous infrastructural links with the mainland,” Keenan said. “They have one road in and one road out. These areas are so precarious. From a municipal finance point of view, they have to borrow money to build and maintain these roads. There’s now a climate premium. They’re pricing in climate change.”
Porter, whose organization First Street has a nationwide database of properties at risk of flooding, said the issue is only going to grow as climate change hastens sea level rise. While coastal communities in South Louisiana may be the ones disappearing into the ocean, the sea will come for many other communities in the coming few decades.
“If you look at the projections out into the future, we’re at the very beginning,” Porter said. “The insurance pullouts we’ve seen in the last couple years are the canary in the coal mine.”