Homeowners Be Aware

Hurricane Ian, What Do We Learn?

October 04, 2022 George Siegal Season 2 Episode 53
Homeowners Be Aware
Hurricane Ian, What Do We Learn?
Show Notes Transcript

Episode 53
October 4, 2022
Hurricane Ian, What Do We Learn?

Hurricane Ian left a path of destruction across Southwest Florida. Originally the storm was forecast to hit Tampa Florida. If it had, the Tampa/St. Petersburg area would have suffered catastrophic damage. What do we learn from Ian that could make a future hurricane less damaging? Hear what we should be doing from John Scardena and Aris Papadopoulos.

 Here are some important moments with John and Aris from the podcast: 

At 6:05  John Scardena talks about what we can do to be better prepared?

 At 22:58 John has advice for people in Tampa, St. Pete and Clearwater to be better prepared going forward?

At 37:32 Aris Papadopoulos talks about what would have happened if Ian had hit Southeast Florida? 

At 49:53 What advice does Aris have for the places in Florida that dodged the bullet this time from Ian?

Here are some ways to follow and contact or follow John Scardena:

Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/doberman-emergency-management-group/mycompany

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DobermanEMG

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dobermanemg/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Doberman_EMG 

Here are some ways to follow and contact or follow Aris Papadopoulos:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aris-papadopoulos-bb3584141/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ResilienceAF  

Websites: https://www.buildingresilient.com 


Important information from Homeowners Be Aware:

Here are ways you can follow us on-line:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeownersbeaware/

Website:
https://homeownersbeaware.com/

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/


If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact

Here's the link to the documentary film I'm making
Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

🎧 If you enjoyed this episode, don't keep it to yourself! Share it with your friends and help spread the knowledge. Remember to hit the like button, subscribe for more insightful content, and leave a review to let us know your thoughts. Your support means the world to us! 🌟

Thanks for listening!

John Scardena:

Like my, my number one job is to keep people alive, preventable death. That's number one. And the number two is getting them to return back to normal as fast as possible. And so in, in terms of preventable death and hurricanes, there's a lot you can do to get out.

Aris Papadopoulos:

You know, a lot of people should be rethinking their location. You know, anybody, I like to say below 15 feet elevation, whether that's from the coast or from a river or even a creek. You know, if, if you're, you know, you can have flash flooding with these very intense rains, you know, better be thinking, you know, what am I, what can I do? To mitigate the risk that I have?

George Siegal:

I'm George Siegal, and this is The Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. Every week we introduce you to people who are working on real world problems and providing actual solutions. Tell Us How to Make it Better is partnering with The Readiness Lab. The home for podcasts webinars and training in the field of emergency and disaster services. Hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining me on the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. This is the start of my second season doing this and for the first episode, I had planned on going to a local organic farm. Actually had this, the segment already, and that's how I wanted to start off. But then Hurricane Ian. And that changed everything as anybody knows who's following any kind of news, especially if you aren't in Florida. You probably have to have to have seen the devastation in southwest Florida, that storm was supposed to hit Tampa. It was forecast for days to hit Tampa. That's where I live. And seeing what happened in Southwest Florida is just not only does your heart break for the people who are suffering. For the people here. It makes you go first. Wow. I dodged a bullet. But beyond that, I think it has to make you think, What would that have been like if it hit here? What kind of damage would we have faced and what would be ahead for us after that storm had passed? When you see areas like Sanibel Naples Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach, it's gonna be years for those places to get back together, and so we know the tragedy there. We saw it in my documentary film, The Last House Standing with Mexico Beach when Hurricane Michael just devastated that area. It was an older community and, and so people here could go, Well, that was a totally different situation. You can't say that now because it's not a totally different situation. We saw the path, we saw the blueprint for what could happen here. And so what I find curious and what I wanna focus on today is how will that change anything? What can people do here to think differently and here could apply to anywhere along the Gulf Coast. It could apply to anywhere up the east coast, anywhere prone to a hurricane. And you could take it beyond that to anyone prone to a disaster in their area. So I have a couple guests on today that are, that are experts in, in talking about this kind of stuff, John Scardena and Aris Papadopoulos. And we're gonna talk to them about their thoughts on Ian and what that means for other areas. Joining me is the CEO of Doberman Emergency Management. John Scardina, Doberman focuses on protecting life, property and continuity of operations through planning, operations and training. John, thank you so much for coming on.

John Scardena:

Absolutely. Happy to be here. George, it's good to see you again and big fan of your film.

George Siegal:

I appreciate that. The last house standing is what John is referring to and we did that film focusing on Mexico Beach. Truly the last house standing. after the hurricane there. And, and John, you were kind of following along. I was making a, a montage of videos that I was posting. Mm-hmm. as we were preparing for that. The, the storm for Ian to hit here in Tampa, those are kind of thrown out the window now. They're really, they don't have the same impact because of the devastation that is to our south. First off, your thoughts on Ian in, as a professional in, in this industry.

John Scardena:

So about 12 hours before Ian hit, I had a friend contact me and said, Tampa, Tampa Bays going to get slammed. And I, all I sent back to him was just, wait. Hurricane Matthew in particular reminded me that hurricanes can shift at the last second. So the, the cone of certain un uncertainty is real, and when we start playing into what the media tells us, and really, like, I do this too, right? Like, you look at the uncertainty and you say, Okay, in the middle path, Tampa. So of course Tampa had to, had to look out. But I, I think gosh, my, my heart just goes out to a lot of people who got slammed in Fort Myers and, and down a little bit more south, I believe. And really across the state. You know, I heard stories from, you know, all the way up to Orlando. And beyond. And so now that it's getting back into warmer waters you know, my heart just goes out to everybody. But again, when it comes to hurricanes and the cone of uncertainty, just wait. Prepare all the outlier areas as well. And you'll be much better prepared.

George Siegal:

You know, I don't think that the meteorologist and the hurricane center are, cuz I watch this stuff, you know every second, and they were talking about don't just pay attention to the center. Especially since the US model was on the left, the European model was on the right going down where the storm ended up pretty much going right? Maybe a little further south than that, but it was in the cone and so they weren't caught off guard. And I don't wanna criticize or second guess anybody down there. They have a tragedy to deal with. What I wanna focus on more is, okay, so for areas like Tampa, It makes you go, you know, I thought we were as prepared as we could be. I, I thought we had all the things in place that would make it less of a tragedy. And now I'm thinking, Wow, does anything matter if a hurricane like that hits you? Are you just, it doesn't seem like anything matter. It just is frightening to see what happens. Those people's lives are changed forever.

John Scardena:

So, I will say, yes, there are things you can. There's a lot you can do as an individual. There's a lot you can do as a community. I, we talk about, now this is kind of off, off topic, but act whether it's active shooters or hurricanes distances, Your friend as an individual. Like my, my number one job is to keep people alive, preventable death. That's number one. And the number two is getting them to return back to normal as fast as possible. And so in terms of preventable death and hurricanes, there's a lot you can do to get out on the, getting back to normal stuff. Your film called it out. Building codes matter where you build matter. Insurance matters. The, the reality is when a storm comes through like this, and it will come through, especially in her you know, hurricane Alley. Right, if you will Florida and the Gulf Coast, as these storms come through, this shouldn't I saw a word on social media that really blew me away. The word was incomprehensible damage and my very first thought was incomprehensible. Like, I can comprehend this because we've seen hurricanes before. We know exactly what they do. Harrowing. Yes. Terrible. Yes. Terrifying. Absolutely. Incomprehensible. We need to, as the professional side, we need to get much better at looking at building codes and preparing individuals and families for this kind of thing.

George Siegal:

Now, I guess we won't know until, I mean, it's gonna take months to, to analyze this. We're just getting studies now from Mexico Beach. What happened, and that was several years ago. But did the newer structures matter? Did evacuation plans matter? You know what we saw here in Tampa, and again, I say this is a great blueprint for us because you're never gonna get a more clear cut example of what that southwesterly approach can do to this part of Florida. This took the path. That would literally wipe us out. So then you look at, okay, where did people evacuate? A lot of people here went to Orlando. Some people went cuz they thought they could have a couple days at Disney World and Universal Studios. Those people had more damage in Orlando than we ended up having here in Tampa. If you've fled further north, And the storm took that northly path. If you had gone to Tallahassee or you know, anywhere up into Georgia, those places were in the path of the storm. So it's, it kind of paralyzes you going, What do I do?

John Scardena:

Go to Canada? Yeah. Even Canada got hit recently. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I talked to somebody who said, Hey, Tampa's gonna get hit. You should head south, you know, go to the Keys. Well, the keys got hit. Yeah. And so, you know, the reality is the. As much as destruction as there was was, and, and you'll see this in the next several days as it comes through, and there will, this will be a 10 year recovery, like most major disasters everywhere has some level of impact. Some areas has catastrophic, some have minor. And if you look at the Red Cross shelters where they, they set up, they never set up in a flood zone. They get people out. And the very rare circumstances, I'm thinking Hurricane Katrina was one of them. They didn't have that foresight. Now they do. And so there are, there are places of safety and security that people can get to, even if it's, if they can't get, you know, thousands of miles away to, you know, Alaska, you know you know, the North Pole, wherever it may be.

George Siegal:

Well, when you listen to the reports, and what I was hearing yesterday was, I think it was Fort Myers Beach, the entire infrastructure, the power grid was destroyed. So it's not just putting up some utility poles and getting power back. Right? You can't get to Sanibel island anymore. The road is, is destroyed. And it's not like even after the earthquake in 90 in 89 in San Francisco where the Bay Bridge collapsed, it was one section. And they could focus on that and rebuild it. They may have to rebuild this entire causeway. Mm-hmm.. So the disruption, when you use words like incomprehensible, I think for us, laymen. We're not in your field where you study this fair enough? Know all that stuff. It is incomprehensible. When I talk to my neighbors and people around Tampa and people are walking around like, Whoa, did we just get lucky? And so my thought is, okay, what does that mean now going forward, what is, we just got lucky mean. Would you not ride out the next storm? Are you going to actually get a generator? We lost power for a minute. My next door neighbor has been without power since the storm hit. Spectrum. Which I think is the worst internet service in the world. Those guys, when Irma hit here, they went out before the storm hit and were out for a week afterwards. We have Frontier. They never lost power, but a lot of people are still without internet, so we got a minor taste here. Does scaring people, what would that mean now for Tampa? I, I haven't, I'm gonna interview the emergency managers here and people as they are able to have time down the road. But what changes? Cuz they seemed really prepared. I was impressed with the level of preparation that they were talking about here, but none of that would've mattered if that storm had hit here.

John Scardena:

Right. So going back to the incomprehensible comment, incomprehensible I like what you said from, for the everyday person, yes, it is comprehensible. If, if I go through you know, personal story, my, my son had to go to the hospital as an individual it was incomprehensible. How do we get here? My, my, I'm worried about my son, I'm worried about my wife. That, those kind of things, and that's incomprehensible. For a doctor it should not be. A doctor should be professional and understand the level of impact critical infrastructure impacts. You know, like I said earlier, it will take 10 years to recover from a major disaster. Critical infrastructure is impacted. Puerto Rico is a great example. Maria went through, destroyed their critical infrastructure. Power included roads included, and you, you had another hurricane just go right through and it destroyed the same bridges that they put up. And so what do you do? And, and it is scary, right? And I honestly, Tampa Bay did dodge a bullet. I mean, and you're talking a real bullet here. Yeah. And so it, it's, it's really, it's really fascinating to see it from all sides of the angle, especially those local emergency managers and hats off to them, those men and women, they're probably already exhausted and they'll be doing this for several more weeks, if not months, to, to come. And so all those responders, the, the linemen who go out there and restore that power you know, you see, you see the exhaustion and so my call out for individuals when you, when you see somebody sitting down in a subway that lineman trying to eat a sub, please be patient with that person because, you know, they're probably pretty exhausted themselves.

George Siegal:

Yeah. You gotta give people a little space. Because you have no idea the depth of what they're going through. I'm just curious to see how things change here, because when I interviewed people here, we were talking about what they did called the the Hurricane Phoenix scenario, which was done back around 2010. The population has exploded here, and I was reading how they did a reboot of it around 2020. And with the growth of this place, they rec, they said 300 billion worth of losses, 50 million tons of wreckage 70% of the businesses in Pinellas County would be destroyed. 60% in Tampa. Downtown Tampa would be under potentially 20 feet of water. All of South Tampa, 12 to 15 feet. Our house could handle 10, many others cannot. So, and, and when I was talking to the emergency guys at, for the film, They were saying, Well, people need a wake up call. Hopefully Michael will be a wake up call. I don't know that anything changed here. There's no way to deflect water like they have over in the Netherlands, so I just don't know how things are different and what, what paralyzes me. I'm not a lifelong Floridian. I'm just a big chicken who wanted to move to Florida and and loves it here. I consider this my home. But the two places I wanted to potentially move from here were Sanibel Island and Naples. Those are my favorite places, and it's just making me sick to see that and to think what that would've been like here. We would be living their tragedy.

John Scardena:

I was talking to a friend who is on Pine Island, which is basically Fort Myers. If you look at Fort Myers Beach, it's it's just maybe five minutes down the road and or across the water. I was FaceTiming a friend. I said, Hey you know, why are you still there? Because, you know, he said, Hey, I'm hunkering down. And I, I, I texted him back. I said, You know, you should get out. And he FaceTiming. He goes, Hey I thought it was going to Tampa. And so I, I thought I could stay, I thought I could ride it out. And it shifted and now, now we're stuck. And then you hear a loud boom and the FaceTime died. He goes, Oh. Any, any, the FaceTime died. I tried to get in contact with him again. I contacted a lot of our friends who are down there, first responders and hats off to them, the urban search and rescue. Everybody lost contact. His family lost contact. Everybody lost contact with him and it was the eye came through after the eye was trying to contact him. His cell phone was ringing, but I couldn't get ahold of him. Neither could anybody else.

Well, 8:

00 PM last night several buddies took down a boat and found him. House destroyed. He had a one story house on the water, house destroyed, his boat was gone. His business, he operates a lot of equipment out of a trailer. His, his trailer gone, but they found him helping his neighbors. And the most amazing part of that is he asked for a few supplies and he opted to stay.

And so that was 8:

00 PM last night. Just, just found him. And it's, it's, it shows. You know, even when you're in the, the worst of circumstances when you focus on other people, it's a way to survive. And the next several months will be a very difficult road for him. And you know, my heart goes out to him and there are probably hundreds of those stories where you know, we, we look at that unfortunately. Experience tells me that unless you're in Fort Myers sometimes decision makers will think, Well, we got lucky. We'll probably get lucky again. And that's just not the case. I if you, if you can wake up and, and do a little bit, then you can prevent this kind of stuff from happening.

George Siegal:

Well, was he in an older home? Do you know what kind of house he had? Was it concrete?

John Scardena:

I think it was a concrete home. He, he, I mean, I can only tell from the FaceTime video he was showing me. Concrete home. He had no windows towards the water.

George Siegal:

If you're not elevated, even a concrete home's not gonna survive that kinda storm surge. The house is there, 10, 15 feet up. At least have a chance.

John Scardena:

Yeah, I mean, when he was on, the wind was already already going and we watched a tree fall onto somebody's boat, you know, just on the other side. I was like, Hey hey, you gotta get outta here. So, but luckily he was okay. And unfortunately some people are not. But again, there are things we can do. New Jersey woke up after Hurricane Sandy and said now it's against the law to build on the water. They put dunes. They, they just, they had destroyed all their natural dunes. They put the dunes back in, and low and behold, big storms have come in there. And no surge. Surge is the thing that, you know, you look at the two types of death in hurricanes, it's surge. And it's generators. Those are the two you know, number one causes of death, one and two. And so if you can get surge to be minimalized, 20 feet of water in Tampa, that's, that's a lot of surge to stop. And then you know, on the other hand, if you can teach people how to operate when there is no power safely, you could probably save a lot of lives that way.

George Siegal:

Yeah, and you know, it's people that are on those islands or in those places that suffered this kind of damage. You know, like the people in in Mexico Beach in The Last House Standing, if all the infrastructure around you is destroyed, your life is still displaced. You just maybe are a little more whole than than everybody around you. I think what the interesting thing is for, for people here in Tampa, you're always faced with that flight or you know, stay, Do I stay, do I go down with the ship? I made that comment to you in a text or do you get out of here and, and save your life. But then you hear that people that left that there was looting going on and immediately people know who leaves and they go and they rob their house or afterwards if you wanna try to protect what few things you have left and you can't get back. So it's a tough decision. I think next time for sure, I would get my family out. Because the weight of that responsibility is just, I mean, I think I aged 10 years going, God, if this hits here and my family gets injured, I, I'm disposable, but I can't let anything happen to them. I mean, that's a, that's a horrible feeling.

John Scardena:

If it makes you feel any better, you're not disposable to me, George. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. But it was a wake up call for you, right? Yeah. I mean, you and I were talking as well during it, and I was like, Oh man, this meteorologist. He's a, he's essentially a storm chaser. You have experienced, you've also done things for yourself personally, and so you were, you were looking to, I wouldn't say capitalize, but experience it and hopefully be okay. And I think it's also wake up call to say, Hey, you were going to move to these areas that were destroyed and you're like, not worth it. And that's, that's good for a lot of people When it comes to looting, I, I've heard a lot of the stories of looting, but I've also responded to several type one events. And the looting is a hundredth of what is reported. The, the suspect. Yes, there are people who do that. Yes, it is horrible. And yes, it's stupid, but you are more important than your stuff. And hopefully you have insurance and hopefully those things. So whether it got washed out in the water or pirate, I mean, basically that's what they are at that point. A pirate comes in and, and hijacks some of that.. That's probably already damaged by the water, to be honest. Not as important as your life.

George Siegal:

Yeah. Now, here in Tampa, a few hundred thousand people are still without power, and we got, we didn't even get the hurricane. We got the, the weakest winds that you could get from a storm that powerful and 200,000 people are without power. I think the generator business, maybe this will wake people up. You can walk around and you know who has a generator because you can hear those things from a block. But I don't know why anybody wouldn't have that. It's like, I don't know why anyone in Oklahoma wouldn't have a storm cellar. I don't know why anyone in California wouldn't have the, a house that is to code to at least survive an earthquake. It's like, why do people make such horrendous gambles or poor decisions with their, their most valuable possession?

John Scardena:

I, So this is a tough one for me because ultimately I believe in personal responsibility, but I get it. I, I think a lot of people I think if they had the means, they would do it. And I think when you prioritize limited resources, including funding that you, you, you hope, It is a one in a million chance, and, and you're not, I'm actually more concerned that the person who plays lottery is not, not worried about getting struck by lightning. Like if you believe in those kind of odds that you, you would believe, you would believe that you get struck by lightning and you'd be more serious about it. But like it's the same kind of concept, right? Like we all prioritize and we have a culture that we don't address a problem until it's right in front of our face. The problem with that mentality though, Is that the, the, just the scope of how big these things are. You can't address it at the last minute. It's impossible. You have to do things when it's blue sky. You know, President Kennedy said it best, right? The best time to fix the roof is when it's sunny. That is, that is the mentality that emergency managers have adopted. However, culturally speaking, especially in the US it is it, it, it goes against the norm for sure..

George Siegal:

So what advice would you have for people in Tampa, for people in St. Pete, for people in Clearwater that look at what happens south of us, what would you tell them they need to do going forward?

John Scardena:

I think the number one thing I would tell people is first of all, count your blessings. Not everybody was so lucky. And interestingly enough, if you have a, a spirit of gratitude, this is gonna be kind of funny, but when people are grateful that, Oh, this time I was the one who got lucky, so I'm going to help out other people. I think when they start, when people start looking at that, they get away from the falicies of what will never happen to me. I got lucky, therefore I should do something so I can remain lucky. And if, if you wanna be more specific there, there's companies out there that can protect homes. They, they, they have these barriers that you can put up. There's communities that I would, I would go after, go after I would work with city, the city so much to say, Hey, we were gonna be under 20 feet of water. What are you going to do about it? And hold them accountable if they don't. Building codes matter. Urban planning matters. Where you live and working with your neighbors matter. One of the biggest problems I have with Doomsday Preppers is they have this mentality that they can do it all by themselves. There's not a single case study in the history of the world where a person doing something by themselves doesn't drive them crazy. If you're alone, you will go crazy. It's much better to work with a community. Hurricane Katrina was a great example of. There was a micro community in Louisiana, a Vietnamese community. The average recovery time in Louisiana was seven years. They recovered in like six weeks. Wow. Because they all worked together. They found the supplies, they had the, well, what I would call memorandum of understanding. They worked with different businesses, so from an individual perspective, get to know your neighbors, get emergency supplies, have a plan, get out. All the basic stuff you hear all the time. Businesses on the other hand, you're, you said 40, 70% of the businesses were wiped out nationally speaking. 40% of businesses, small businesses don't come back after a major disaster. Having a, a business continuity plan, even with your competitors saying, Hey, if we both get wiped out, we're gonna see if we can survive together. Having, having those, those legal systems in place to be able to operate. Insurance matters. Gosh, there's so many different things. People forget that insurance is a first come, first serve. So the faster that you can get your insurance company involved, the faster you will recover. Even if you're like, Oh, great, I have insurance. I get to make a claim. Well, guess what? It might be like years before they get to you. Right? And water damage years later is pretty hard to prove. So it's, it's gosh, there's plans, insurance, get out, know your community. That's what I would say.

George Siegal:

Don't you find people have short memories? I mean, it's like when you're driving down the street and you almost get in an accident and you have that adrenaline rush, and then you drive on and you forget about it. If you're, you know, if something bad happens, you, you have a bad medical test and you think you have cancer and then you find out you don't, People have short memories. That's what we've, when we've interviewed people, mayors have said, Yeah, five years from now, this will be a memory for people and, and they're gonna go on. How do you get them to say, Okay, this is not, this is real. Let's make a difference.

John Scardena:

Unfortunately, historically speaking, it takes another dramatic experience to do that. The best way to overcome that is through training and exercising. And so like, it keeps that memory fresh. Some memories seer right? Fort Myers will forever remember this disaster. You know Louisiana especially, you know New Orleans will forever remember Hurricane Katrina, and there's several disasters like that. However, the adjacent communities need to be working with interview, get to know, especially from an organizational perspective. It is now a responsibility as soon as this disaster's over, a responsibility of the community leaders in Fort Myers to warn and work with the community leaders in other areas to help it keep it fresh in their mind. I mean, look at World War ii. We in Europe, this is again slightly off topic, but again, a reference point. I was called in to work with NATO because they wanted to understand mass, a population migration, right? Even, even though they're seeing that with Syria, they're preparing for Russia to enter into Europe. All those lessons lost of Europe being destroyed, their infrastructure being destroyed, and how that population will react. All those lessons have been lost. And so now they're looking at emergency managers and saying, Hey, you deal with, you know, large scale population change all the time. How do you, how do you handle that? So we're with them.

George Siegal:

Wow. Well, you know, you hope it's the wake up call that really does get to people. I, I mean, I know it's gotten to me. I'm not affected by much. I'm pretty much a sarcastic, nothing really bothers me, guy. Yeah. And I'm rattled by this one, and I, I can only imagine. You know, I, I can't really imagine how other people are going to deal with it or how they feel, but I hope they take it seriously.

John Scardena:

Well, let me, let me change the table on you a little bit. What are you going to do differently?

George Siegal:

I think it'll change my plans how I would protect my family right after, or, or when the disaster is before it happens, knowing that they're in a place that they would be safe. I think I wanna reevaluate understanding what the flood level is because we think we would be okay because we have a newer home and I wanna make sure that we've done everything we can to get to a place where if we ha that place will be safe, we can get back easily to try to, to rebuild afterwards, I guess.

John Scardena:

Yeah, I think that's a great call out. You know, understanding the difference between a crisis and a disaster. You don't always have to let a crisis become a disaster. If you can think, your first line of defense is always the ability to think, right? And you're already, you're already looking at the future like, Okay, this is still hurricane season, by the way. Two weeks. Another system could pop up in the gulf, and if that happens, leave, just leave. Distance is your friend. You know, you're talking about being on the outer bands and it wasn't really that bad. You're looking at the difference between that, what, a couple hundred miles, right? Between you, How far is Fort Myers from you?

George Siegal:

You know, it's, it's a less than a two hour. It's about a two hour drive, maybe less. Okay.

John Scardena:

A two hour drive can change your whole life. Yeah, right. You can come back and survey the damage and I hope that your home was never impacted, but if it is, I'll be the first one there to help you out, George.

George Siegal:

But Well, I appreciate that, you know, but it is, it does change your thinking. And you know, I used to do a lot of live television where I was out in storms and you, you had to be thinking all the time in, in a disaster situation. You lose that ability and most people are paralyzed during a disaster. You sit there going, Now I can't think anything straight. I just wanna watch the coverage. And, and you end up just doing nothing. And so the, you can't say enough how much you have to have a plan in advance.

John Scardena:

I was on a studio set just last, oh no, no, what was it? Five days ago? Five days ago. A, a wooden prop. It was a large, like crane essentially that was supposed to be hauling up rock. The crane fell. It was unstable and it fell in the mud and everybody got of the way, except for a 17 year old kid. I think he was 17. He looks up and he went like this. I mean, that would've put him in the ground, essentially. I mean, literally, I like a hammer to the ground. He's so small compared to the thing, but luckily, somebody screamed at him again and he, he got outta the way and nobody got hurt is fine, but somebody said, Hey, why don't you move? He's like, I wanted to. But all I could think was to do this. Yeah. And, and that is the natural tendency. I, I think we also, it's the same reason why, you know, if we see like a train on fire, we all wanna watch instead of like, get out. It's like, it's like fascinating. It seems like incomprehensible, going back to that word, like, is this really possible? Like this is outside of the norm so much. Well, you fast forward and you know, people, people do this in hurricanes, they do this in every disaster, even if they want to. This is why I'm a little more understanding than I used to be. Even if they want to, they feel like they can't or they're just paralyzed by the, the shock of it. Speaking of which, did he see the weatherman who was hit by the tree?

George Siegal:

Yeah, Jim Cantore and, and you know, then he went back out afterwards and, and I gotta tell you, I think I admire those guys. I think they're great meteorologists, but that's the stupidest thing. How are they benefiting anybody's life by being out there? I think they would have more benefit being behind the shelter. And showing us really good pictures. But the stupidity of putting yourself in a life threatening situation when you don't have to, goes against every bit of rational thinking that exists.

John Scardena:

Well, it actually tells people that they can do it too. Yeah. Like, Oh, he's out there. I could do it. That looks fun. You know so, so you have that problem. Actually, the number one thing that has gotten people to leave is not by telling people to write their social security number on their forearm with a permanent marker. It's not by telling them that first responders can't save them. The number one thing that has happened is actually, I think it's from the the Weather channel, but it could be from NOAA as well, they'll have a, a graphic of a person and a house, and they'll show what the, how high the water will be in comparison. We've gotten more positive feedback. I'm like, That got me to leave. Like I didn't realize, like my house, when they say flooding, you think it's in the street or you think like, Oh, hopefully it doesn't come up to the tires of my car or my driveway. No, no, no. Your floor is gone. And that has gotten people to, to leave and I hope we use that more of that, that imagery where somebody doesn't actually have to be out there. But movie magic, whatever you want, want to call it gets people to to start moving.

George Siegal:

All right, John. Hey, thank you so much for your time this morning. As always, you have brilliant information that I think people will really benefit from listening to, and, and I hope they do.

John Scardena:

George, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Please contact me anytime and I hope your house never gets nailed by a hurricane. Thank, Thank you.

George Siegal:

Yeah, appreciate that. Joining me now is Aris Papadopoulos, who literally wrote the book about how we need to make better choices on where we live and what we live in. Aris is an international pioneer in consumer driven resilience. He was named a distinguished expert in resilience at Florida International University and wrote the book Resilience, The Ultimate Sustainability. I've had Aris on a couple of times. Aris welcome. Thank you for coming on.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Thank you George. Good to see you. And happy to talk to your audience.

George Siegal:

Yeah. You know, this was this completely changed a lot of people's lives forever in, you know, in an insignificant way. It changed what I was doing because that storm was supposed to hit Tampa where I live, and I was documenting our preparations and what was going to happen, and now I feel really stupid. It's like, wow. None of that would've mattered. We would've been wiped out.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Yeah, I don't know where exactly elevation wise and distance from the coast you are, but definitely this was the real McCoy. It was a Andrew kind of size event. So, you know, we're fortunate it didn't hit Miami. We're fortunate it didn't hit Tampa directly, but it did hit a very developed part of Florida and obviously has crossed the state and has done damage on the Northeastern side and now headed to, to the Carolinas.

George Siegal:

Now what I'm not doing is, is I'm not showing a lot of images of, of what Ian did down there, because everybody can see those. You can get those anywhere. But what I was interested in having the theme of, of the podcast be about is, okay, so how do people react to this that we're not in that area? I know when we, we made The Last House Standing, we talked about, you know, Hurricane Michael and, and how it hit Mexico Beach. This is completely different because this was not an, an older community that was not even close to code. So I guess my first question would be, do you know how strong a code they had in those areas? And then we're still seeing that kind of damage?

Aris Papadopoulos:

Yes. Well, well, you're looking at decades of housing. You know, I, I just yesterday was kind looking at the the Fort Myers beach area just to get an idea of when a lot of those properties were built. And you do have some, some properties built in the, in the twenties, some properties built in the forties, fifties. And then you have recent properties in the nineties and after 2000, so you have a pretty, you know, wide segment of properties. And my guess would be that what we've seen destroyed is not what has been built in the last 20, 25 years. It's mostly what has been built before that. But that's to be confirmed. But, you know, that's my original guess. The key point here is that, you know, our building stock still has a lot of vulnerable properties, even in very hazard prone areas. And if you're looking to move into a property, You know, make double sure you understand what you're looking at. You know yes, it may be pretty, it may have had this you know, interior renovated and, and look, look nice. But, you know, if you're looking at a property that was built to a a standard of let's say 80 miles an hour, or 90 or a hundred, and you're in a zone that could be impacted by category four or even five in the future you know, you, you better take caution.

George Siegal:

Now if that storm, if, if hurricane Ian had hit South Florida, the southeast part of the state, how would you imagine Miami and Fort Lauderdale and Boca and all those areas would have held up? Because a lot of them have the toughest building codes in the country. How do you think that that, that they might have fared? I know you said it, you're glad you didn't hit there. Of course. I mean, we all are glad when it misses us. What do you think would've happened?

Aris Papadopoulos:

Well, this was a combined wind and water event. Obviously, we saw significant storm surge in the order of 10, 15 feet plus in locations. So wind wise, I would expect that Southeast Florida would've fared quite well. Obviously there's still some older buildings that were not affected by, by Andrew further north of Homestead and those South Miami areas that could have been damaged, but a lot fewer than what we we're seeing now from this, this Ian impact. But the storm surge would've been devastating in the coastal part of Miami Beach. Even the coast along Biscayne bay so you would've had some pretty serious flood damage to properties that you know, are within, let's say, you know, less than 15 feet elevation from the water.

George Siegal:

Yeah. I was reading the updated Hurricane Phoenix scenario for Tampa before the hurricane hit, and they were talking about how some areas would have 20 feet of water in them. Downtown St. Petersburg would be an island. Now, and it would, they named the one spot that might be above water. Where I live, the flood level is 10 feet. It seems like we would've had water in our house if that had hit here. How do you think this is going to change people's mentality going forward? I know it's changed mine. I'm not a lifelong Floridian, but, but this is my home. I love this place. Mm-hmm., But it, it scared the hell outta me.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Well, you know, I know it's scary and I know it's, it's a moment people kind of thing, but it's an, it's important for us to think about that, you know, that that's one of the most important thing choices we have to make as individuals, where we live and in what we live in. So, you know, a lot of people should be rethinking their location. You know, anybody, I like to say below 15 feet elevation, whether that's from. The, the coast or from a river or even a, a creek. You know, if, if you're, you know, you can have flash flooding with these very intense rains, you know, better be thinking, you know, what am I, what can I do to mitigate the risk that I have. And obviously people that are in homes that were built to lower standards of wind particularly, you know, within a, a few miles of the coast should be thinking the same thing. You know what do I do? Can, can I do something or do I need to tear this you know, house totally down and rebuild from scratch and do things differently. So I think that that's a important thought. I mean, other people may say, I'm packing up and leaving, you know, I'm headed, heading for higher ground, so to speak. Yeah. But for those who stay, I think it's important to say, you know, what am I gonna prioritize? And second, you know, how do I get, you know, the funding to do that. You know, obviously there's been a lot of appreciation in Florida during the last two, three years. A lot of people have moved during the Covid crisis from the north to the South. So, you know, a lot of properties have appreciated, a lot of people are sitting on, you know, much higher equity land has appreciated. So, you know, can you use part of that equity to say, okay, I'm, I'm gonna build either an add-on you know, and, and if I'm a two-story house, you know, I'm converting the existing first story. To adjust, you know an open area you know, for ping pong tables or whatever. You know, but something that, you know, I don't care if it floods or not, and I'll just use the second story of the existing house and then I'll add on something stronger next to it or right behind it, in which, you know, I'll kind of connect the second floor. And that's where I live.

George Siegal:

Now. All the newer homes that are being built in South Tampa and around Tampa. Are they have to be 10 or 11 feet. I think they might have raised it in some areas to 11, but if Ian had hit here, you know, I'm probably half a mile from, From the bay, not from the coast. Mm-hmm., you think we would've got 15 feet of water here? And then it's all the damage that piles into your house from other structures that are older. Mm-hmm., We, I, I would say Tampa is very much like Naples and Fort Myers in the sense that you have that mixture in the community of the really old homes and the really new ones. And it, it's a scary blueprint cuz that was the exact path that is our doomsday path here. Mm.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Yeah. And, and, and so much of this depends on terrain. You know, the, the, the water moves along what is its easiest path and, and its easiest path, it's not to climb up, is to just to go in the, the lowest part of the, the terrain. So, you know, if the terrain is totally flat, theoretically, you know, the water will spread evenly unless there are obstructions that we have built. Let's say that even, you know, west, east of the bay where you are, let's say it's just a little bit hilly, you know just some, you know, some areas a little higher, some areas are a little lower, You know, the, the water will tend to go in those lower areas. I mean, those areas will be where the water's kind of reaching in. And if you're there you're gonna feel the impact of that surge as it floods the bay and kind of makes its way further you know, inland and, and could be affected by wind. If the, if the wind is behind that, you know, kind of moving it, it will push the water much stronger inland than it would be if, if the wind is not behind it. So, you know, I mean, these are all things you gotta, you gotta think about when you're planning the future. And you know, the tough decisions for everyone. And, and I guess you're, ma you're in, in that thought process yourself. Yeah. When

George Siegal:

we were making The Last House Standing and we were talking to local officials here, they were saying, Well, Hurricane Michael hopefully is a wake up call. And I know that those professionals do a lot of stuff behind the scenes that we probably don't know about, but it seems like a lot of the stuff they do is preparing for how to handle after the storm hits. Mm-hmm., if they're doing stuff in front of that to make us safer. I, I'm not aware of it and so it, it might exist, but I just don't know about it. How could this not be the ultimate wake up call to everybody? I mean, you don't get, I know a lot of lifelong Floridians like, ah, it's very hard for a storm to hit Tampa because they turn to the right. Yeah, this was close.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Well, you know, again, you know, we focus on the response. We focus on the, you know, often the, the hazard too much. We don't focus on what we are responsible for, which is our own development. And you know, that, that is not talked enough. It's easily forgotten. But you know, there's one thing that is very clear to me, the insurance industry is, is facing already was facing troubles before Ian. We had like six or so insurance companies in Florida that went insolvent. There are many reasons for that. The reinsurance market has become very difficult. They can't get, you know, inexpensive reinsurance like they were getting years ago. And reinsurance is, is in fact the insurance for insurers. You know, inflation has been a factor. Their costs have gone up as have been costs of, you know, claims. And also litigation has been a higher rising cost in Florida, I don't know if you know this, but Florida historically over the last decade or so, has had like 10% of the national claims and, and like 80% of the national litigation on claims. So, you know, we have you know, and the legislature in Florida has tried to solve this, but not satisfactory. So, you know, that's been, you know, driving insurers out of the state. So, you know, imagine now what might, might lie ahead after they've paid out tens of billions of dollars and are saying, you know, We don't wanna be in the state. And in fact, the state has, has imposed now a 60 day kind of moratorium on cancellations and, and you know, dropping policies and so forth. But what will happen after the 60 days or after the 90 days and so forth, you know, people are gonna make their choices from the insurance side and either say, you know, we've gotta double the, the, the premiums or we're, we're, we're just stepping out of the state, you know, And where, where's that gonna leave you? You know? So if you're gonna be more and more self-insured, so to speak, you know, because the deductibles are gonna go up, the costs are gonna go up for premiums you've gotta take these matters of resilience about where you live what kind of, you know, property you have into your own hands and make your choices. And people need more information. And, you know, you're doing your, your part with this this, this podcast, I'm doing as much as as we can, but we've gotta, we gotta get, you know the media and, and more people talking about this you know, in the months and years after this event.

George Siegal:

It's another thing that's challenging too, is where people go if they do leave. A lot of people from Tampa went to Orlando. Orlando got it worse than Tampa. And so, you know, you wanna say, Okay, if I'm gonna get out, where do I go? You the time to make that plan is, is now for the next one. Not right when the next one is barreling down on you. The people in Fort Myers though, they were in the cone. It just, nobody was talking about that being a scenario. It was like everybody was focused on Tampa.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Yeah. And in fact, you know, Tampa, Tampa got the most of the attention and, and obviously, you know, Tampa is much, much more dense and you know, from the bay side, you know, has, has much, much higher risk. But, you know Fort Myers, you know that, that the Naples area and so forth. You have a mix of people there, you know, I mean, there's some people who have come down and said, Okay, I'm coming down here to retire. And, and that's even riskier because if you're an older person, you probably have restrictions in, in terms of mobility, your, you know, your ability to respond and so forth. You, you wanna be like me in, in a low risk, you know, very resilient house. So, you know I urge your retirees and I'm, I'm trying to get the AARP that I'm a member of to, to, to put an article, you know, talking about this subject. I haven't been successful yet. Because, you know, retirees have to be thinking about where they're going to. So you have this, that, that big class of people. Then you have people who basically have vacation homes. Yes, they have their primary home somewhere else. Hopefully it's in a more resilient location in place. And they basically say, Okay, that's my vacation. You know, I'm, I, I have somewhere else to go. I'm not gonna worry about it. I have my boat slip there. Hopefully some of them have the financial capacity to to afford a, you know this kind of loss. Then you have people that, you know, are in the lower kind of levels of, of of economics that basically live in manufactured houses and mobile houses. You know, those are really, I, I call them like you know basically live in coffins. You know, they're the first that are gonna get wiped out, destroyed, you know, and, and hopefully they have the sense to evacuate quickly because they are the most vulnerable. So you, you know, you still have a lot of those and, and I can't believe how many manufactured and mobile homes we have in vulnerable states like Florida, you know, you know, hundreds of thousands. In fact.

George Siegal:

You and you and I have talked about this before. Okay. What kind of memory do people have? You know, Michael might not have been enough of a wake up call for people. Now we have Ian, when I've talked to people after a disaster, some of the officials or the mayor, whatever, will say, people will forget about this in five years. And, and they'll just be going on with their lives, but not the people in Naples, in Fort Myers in Sanibel. I mean, it's, it could be five to 10 years before those areas, and some of them may never recover based on what we're hearing, so mm-hmm., you have people have to understand the path to recovery maybe, maybe never.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Yes, exactly. And, and as we saw in, in New Orleans some people may just pick up and leave for good. And, and that can affect obviously businesses, the economy et cetera. And, and you and I worked on you know, this Mexico Beach, kind of, you know, post-disaster, you know, survey we saw there the difficulties people had. And, and these were generally, you know, it was a small area and these were generally middle income people, you know, with, with you know the decent incomes and so forth. And it's taken three, four, you know, maybe even more years to recover. And the difficulties they faced, even when they were insured to collect the funds they needed to to rebuild.

George Siegal:

So for people that are not in the areas that were hit, what advice would we leave with them for how they should process Hurricane Ian? Because the people that are in it, there's, there's not much we can do for them other than give financial support and, and, and support any way we can. But for the people around there, like the people here, the people in South Florida, what advice would you have for them?

Aris Papadopoulos:

Well, the first step is to do a self-assessment. You know, almost think of it like a health assessment. You know you know, you, you go through a, you know, you, you hear about a friend, let's say, who had a, a severe, you know, health issue. And you look at yourself and you see the similarities, and you just kind of say, you know, I've gotta change my lifestyle. You know, if I wanna extend my, my, my life, you know, and, and and, and, and live in a proper way. So we need to do, you know, each of us needs to do a property assessment and you know, I, I'm, I'm trying to provide tools for doing. On my website, building resilient.com. You know, I have the buyers Guide. I'm, I'm working right now and kind of an adaptation kind of self exam, a self quiz that you can take, you know, to see whether you should be adopting early. And, and if yes, what kind of adaptation you should be be doing other resources include online and are for free flood factor. Go there and check what your flood risk is. You know, you just have to enter your property. They're not gonna try to sell you anything. It's a nonprofit, you know, and, and they have suggestions there too as to what you can do. So, you know, doing a self-assessment, I think wherever you are is, is the first step. And then developing a plan, an action plan. And if you are planning to spend any money on your house you know, any renovation money, make sure that you prioritize items that will make your house less vulnerable. That will make it more resilient. Yes, you may like that you know kitchen to that new kitchen or that, you know, fancy bathroom or doing something cosmetic, but you know you're gonna lose it all if you know what you're sitting on is a vulnerable property. So, you know, the first priority should be, you know do I, If I, if I need to replace a roof, let me go to a hurricane rated roof instead of just a code roof. You know, the code may say you're good with a roof at 130 miles an hour. But maybe you should put a, a roof that's for 170 miles an hour, you know windows and doors and garage doors. You know, the code may say, Okay, you can go with an ordinary door that's good for you know, a hundred miles an hour, 110 miles an hour, but maybe you need to put a, a hurricane rated door and windows and be safe on that side. So all these kind of things, you know, there, there's a whole list of, of things that you should be prioritizing if you're looking to stay in that house and renovate it. Obviously if you're in a low location, you know, your, your choices become tougher because they become more expensive. You know, number of people are looking at elevating homes and yes, you can elevate a house, you know, but depending on its size and its weight it may cost, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars to do that. Or you, if you, if you're permitted to build more on that site, you may add on, you know, as I mentioned earlier a new extension to the house that will be more, more resilient. So, you know, there's a, there's a list of choices, unfortunately we don't have that many people helping homeowners kind of go through that. It'd be more useful if, if governments spend time helping consumers in that rather than tell 'em, Okay, make sure you got your medicine. Make sure you got your, you know, bought your water. Things like that, you know, I mean, they, they tell us, you know, the stuff, you know, just a few days before the event, but then they forget about us during the rest of the year.

George Siegal:

Of course all that goes out the window if you have a 20 foot storm surge and the infrastructure of your community is entirely wiped out even the best planning can lead to a bad outcome.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Yeah. There are certain areas that unfortunately, maybe we have to return back to nature eventually.

George Siegal:

Yeah. And, and, and I think one of the most important things for people to take away is you make the plan in advance, because I can tell you firsthand as it gets closer to you, your brain doesn't work the same. You are captured by coverage, watching what's unfolding, and you're almost paralyzed to the point of that's not the time you wanna start going. Okay, where could we go? What should we do? And you do that on a nice day.

John Scardena:

Exactly, absolutely.

George Siegal:

Aris I appreciate you coming on as always, a bunch of great information and I encourage everybody to read your book Resilience, The Ultimate Sustainability that that should be a must read for anybody that wants to have a house anywhere.

Aris Papadopoulos:

Thank you George. Appreciate the the plug and you know, I'm here to help communicate this. This has been become my, my life purpose as a retired construction veteran and also a World Trade Center 9-11 survivor to, to communicate the public what they can do.

George Siegal:

Thank you so much for listening to today's Tell, Us How to Make It Better podcast. Certainly a very sad and tragic situation that, that people are gonna be experiencing now for, for years. And I guess we'll see if that changes anybody's thought process of whether they want to continue to live where they're living or if they'll do something to make where they are living safer. If you want to get ahold of John or Aris, their information is in the show notes. And if you have any questions or comments for me, if you know somebody who is affected by the disaster, you, I have a contact form in the show notes. It's on my website, Tell Us How to Make It Better dot com. And if, if they want to talk, if they want to talk about their situation or what they're going to do going forward, I would certainly love to hear from you and hear from them. So that's there for you to reach out. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.