Solar community just north of Fort Myers

[jimbogumbo]

It fared really well in Ian. Also designed with storm resistance features: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/us/solar-babcock-ranch-florida-hurricane-ian-climate/index.html

[Wahoo Redux]

As always, the question is about how many people will connect the dots here.

[mamselle]

Sorry, what?

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

Sorry, what?

M.

Simply that this is a viable technology that is apparently durable enough to survive a hurricane and therefore might be worth investing in.

A lot of people have a kneejerk reaction to green technology, however.

Sorry, guess that was not clear.

[mamselle]

Ah, I see.

Good thought.

Countervailing forces also exist, of course...

Infrastructure can be expensive to replace (although once the hurricane's done the demo phase, that's out of the way, I suppose); "putting things back as they were" is potentially quicker and less costly than re-design and re-imagination may seem to be for those tasked and visibly responsible for fixing the mess; traumatized individuals are generally in search of the comfort and consolation "old ways" provide, not feeling particularly brave in recovery (excepting the rare, far-sighted visionary who does connect those dots), etc.

In other words, there's a lot of drag, mentally, and otherwise, on logical changes of course that would turn the battleship around , even though it might well be wiser.

Think of all the insurers who literally have to refuse to cover rebuilt homes along regularly-flooded banks of the Mississippi to get applicants to change their stubborn (?old macho) insistence that "that land's been in my family since Sacajawea guided Lewis and Clark to it" heroics, and you can see the problem: they could easily re-connect the dots more wisely, but other deep forces work against wisdom every day...plain human fear and an incapacitating sense of loss among them.

All that said, there might be a way to have quick plans drawn up and ready for discussion, and for homeowners' associations (of which there are many in FL, it would be interesting to know their proportion among all the sad, flattened wipe-outs we're seeing), to vote on. Such groups are notoriously conservative by their very nature, for all sorts of other reasons, so incentives like cost-reduction schemes, tax abeyance plans, and planning permission speed might be needed as well.

Connecting the dots is one (human) thing; admission that one sees the picture they form may only be divine...

Still, a worthwhile consideration.

Elsewhere, say, in Germany, one might simply see it imposed by the intra-governmental green forces we lack, but a country that struggles to rid itself of a dangerous demagogue whose unchained vitriol still obtains has a ways to go, yet, to be so progressive, I fear.

M.

[apl68]

We have a square mile worth of solar farm going up on the edge of our town, less than a mile from where I sit.  In this case the land was fairly flat and covered with pine clear-cuts (not unlike what you'd see in much of Florida), so at least they haven't spoiled a large swath of lovely land to build it, as is happening elsewhere.  It's good to know that solar installations can be made more weather-resistant than one might have supposed.