Flooded Sarasota, FL roads after Hurricane Ian, 2022
South Florida is still undergoing a days-long, torrential rain storm that has dumped up to 20 inches of water in some areas. In the city of Sarasota on Tuesday evening, eight inches of rain fell in just three hours, something that NBC News stated only happens “every 500 to 1,000 years.”
This record-setting south Florida rain in the first half of June follows what NBC News also said was the warmest May on record in the area. Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts “above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year,” in part due to “near-record warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.” Something is going on, and we know what it’s called: climate change. Incredibly, however, instead of taking steps to fight climate change (such as promoting solar and wind power and electric vehicles), Florida’s Republican state government officials, headed by Governor Ron DeSantis, are hiding their heads in the increasingly wet and eroding sand. Indeed, just last month, during the aforementioned record heat, DeSantis signed a Republican bill “that erases most references to ‘climate change’ from state law.” Meanwhile, insurance companies, which do not have the luxury of denying climate change, are getting out of the home insurance business in Florida, and the ones who stay are charging the highest rates in the nation.
